Crackling Biscuits

For years, I’ve been hearing about the delicious merits of cracklings and how they can be used to make a crackling biscuit. Now with a fresh batch of cracklings on hand, I searched the Internet for the perfect recipe. There are so many. Some are made with yeast, not my idea of a biscuit, which is supposed to a quick bread, so no time to raise them with yeast. Some recipes called for leavening with eggs instead of baking powder or baking soda, not my preference. Many other permutations, including the addition of fresh cracked black pepper or cayenne. I will try adding one of those the next time. In the end, I mentally aggregated several recipes in relation to the proportion of dry ingredients and cracklings to milk for my first stab. My husband says he’d like a little more cracklings in them, so I will probably up the cracklings to 1½ cups next time. But overall, my first batch got thumbs up all around. Makes 6-12 biscuits, depending on the size of your cutter.


             2 cups white flour
             1 cup cracklings
             1 tsp. sea salt
             1 Tbsp. baking powder
             ¼ cup leaf lard
             2/3 cup whole milk


Add the cracklings to the flour and pulse in a blender until the cracklings are spread throughout the flour. Pour the flour/crackling mixture into a medium-sized bowl; add the sea salt and baking powder. Sift the dry ingredients  together and cut in the lard until it looks like cornmeal. Add the milk and stir. Quickly form the dough into a ball and knead lightly on a floured board. Pat dough 1/2-inchthick and cut with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 450ºF for 12 to 15 minutes.

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