Professor Butter Beard’s “David” by Michelangelo
Scraps. We all collect them, and admit it, it is just a fun word to say. Scrappy! I have boxes of my treasured childhood scrapbooks and photo albums safely tucked under my bed. I can distinctly remember my grandmother’s collection of lost buttons in her sewing box and the tin in her refrigerator that held all the rendered bacon fat that she would return to use in her biscuits and delicious fried eggs. We all have leftovers in plastic bags and Tupperware safely stored in hopes that they will taste exactly the same days from now. And who doesn’t leave that short piece of thread in the needle after mending a rip in your jeans or the tear in your favorite blanket curtesy of your scrappy canine.
Michelangelo carved his “David” from a scrap. The huge piece of abandoned Carrara marble, left over from an earlier commission, had rested for decades outside the Florence Cathedral waiting to be woken by the divine one’s touch. The Florentines had just exiled the ruling Medici family and executed the Dominican friar from Ferrara who defied the pope with his “bonfire of the vanities.” They commissioned the 26-year-old sculptor to create a larger-than-life David – already beloved to the Florentines as the biblical underdog shepherd that defeated the Philistines with a shot from his sling. David stands stoically as he readies himself in anticipation. His eyes gaze slightly out of our view as he catches his first glance of the giant enemy before him. The masterpiece was originally intended to decorate the exterior of the cathedral, forty feet above street level, but upon completion, it is was deemed to be too significant to the restored Republic and placed in a public square, outside the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of civic government in Florence, in the Piazza della Signoria, where it was unveiled on September 8th, 1504. A copy still remains in the piazza, and the original, recently lovingly cleaned, stands ready to forever protect within the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze.
These billowing speckled biscuits remind me of the Italian marble quarries which supplied so many of the great artists of Florence and Rome with stone. My technique used to laminate the buttery layers by folding and then cutting them into square biscuits eliminates the often-used method that overworks the dough when re-rolling and cutting into rounds. You might not have “scraps,” but you will enjoy every flaky cloud!
Buttermilk Everything Biscuits
12 Biscuits
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour (plus a bit more for dusting the rolling surface)
3 Tbsp white sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda (this helps the browning, but could easily be left out)
1 tsp salt (less to taste)
9 Tbsp cold unsalted butter
1 ½ cups cold buttermilk
6-9 Tbsp of “Everything But The Bagel Seasoning” (I use Trader Joe’s mix!)
Dusting of coarse cornmeal for the baking sheet
1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2) Line a sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper and lightly dust with coarse cornmeal
3) Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and soda),
4) With a box grater, grate 9 Tbsp cold butter directly onto the dry mix.
5) Cut in the butter with your fingers (or a pastry cutter) until only small pieces remain.
6) Make a well in the dry and pour in the cold buttermilk. Gather the dough together with your hands until all is moistened and forms a loose ball.
7) On a lightly floured surface, lightly roll the dough into a 12-inch square (roughly 1/2” thick).
8) Cut the dough into three 4” by 12” pieces and stack them on top of each other creating one 4” by 12” piece (Ill. 1 and 2).
9) Turn the new rectangle 90 degrees and lightly roll the dough again into a 12-inch square. Cut the dough again into three 4” by 12” pieces.
10) On the center piece, sprinkle 2-3 Tbsp of the “Everything But The Bagel Seasoning” and lightly press into the dough.
11) Place the right piece of the dough on the center piece and do the same with another 2-3 Tbsp of the seasoning mix. Finally, top with the left piece and sprinkle the last 2-3 Tbsp of the seasoning mix on top and lightly press in place.
12) Cut the dough right down the middle creating two 12” inch long pieces. Then cut the two pieces into six equal sections creating 12 biscuits (Ill. 3).
13) Place the biscuits one inch apart on the prepared baking sheet and bake for twenty minutes until tops are golden (Ill. 4).
14) Cool on the sheet for five minutes and then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Illustrations drawn by Mike McQuinn - Thank you!
