Last year, brownies got me back into making sourdough. Even before the uptick of quarantine-inspired bread bakers, I tiptoed back into kneading and shaping the slow-rising loaves after sufficient time had passed for me to get over inadvertently killing the starter I'd nurtured years prior. Brownies are not a direct route into sourdough, I know, but the recipe calls for using excess sourdough starter: meaning, the starter that you discard each time the remaining starter is fed.
The purposeful use of sourdough discard was enough to pull me back into the daily (or weekly) ritual of pouring out a measure of starter, feeding the remainder, and stashing it until our next adventure together.
I'm getting better at coming up with ideas for that discard, like waffles and okonomiyaki. Recently I even came across a cookbook recipe for sourdough discard soup (I haven't tried it yet, but as my self-isolation pantry diminishes, don't think I'm not keeping it on my radar). That brownie recipe, of course, is also an excellent use for discard. But, just as you can't make fresh bread every day, you also can't make brownies every day—even if being in quarantine makes enjoying dessert with every meal feel like the right move.
A recent conversation with my mother led to another use for discard. She recalled a time in the 1980s, when I was a child, in which sourdough was having a moment within the cooking community of my home town in southern Middle Tennessee. She remembered a recipe for sourdough biscuits, which she would sometimes make instead of her usual biscuit recipe, since it was an ideal way to use some of her starter.
I had zero recollection of that sourdough moment, but I asked if she could find the recipe and send it to me as soon as possible. Written by my childhood priest, the late Reverend Richard Buchignani, the recipe was first printed in a church cookbook. And something I do remember was Father Buchignani's reputation for being a great baker.
When I received a photo of the recipe via text, I was charmed by the instructions. Father Buchignani first gave instructions for making the sourdough starter itself. The method suggests making the starter on "a mild day, not hot." It gives details for setting the starter outdoors at 5 p.m., and bringing it back inside at 8 p.m. The biscuit recipe gave no indication for the quantity of flour to use—I suppose if you're a cook in rural Tennessee, you just know these things.
For others to follow along, though, I'd need to come up with my own, more complete version of the recipe. The idea of using commercial yeast in biscuits wasn't new to me—angel biscuits are made with both traditional leavening and dry yeast. In that style of biscuit the yeast is really there as a flavoring agent; the rise mostly comes from the baking powder and/or soda used in them. The same is true for these sourdough biscuits, although if you use a very active starter you may get an extra boost.
No buttermilk means you can successfully make a dairy-free biscuit, if the mood or necessity strikes you. I've tried this recipe with both milk-based and water-based starters and can attest that it works with either. If you are going fully dairy-free due to allergies or preference, I suggest using high-quality dairy-free butter, such as Miyoko's in place of traditional butter. Again, you'll get more lift with traditional butter, but the flavor of the Miyoko's is great and the biscuits made from it are equally good.
It's great to have this recipe in your corner going into Easter in the time of the coronavirus pandemic. If you haven't been to the store to re-up your milk, buttermilk, or cream supply, you now have an option for biscuits that don't need the stuff. Plus, making them feels like some sort of alchemy: turning what would be wasted discard into delicate golden rounds of comfort. The biscuits are airy and light with a crisp top and bottom crust: ideal for stuffing with ham (or this easier Easter-ham substitute), slathering with apricot jam, or smothering in sausage gravy. They're so easy, though, you needn't save them for a special occasion—although, any morning that starts with a sourdough biscuit is a special occasion, even if it's just another random Tuesday.
