They’re the same, except shortcake has sugar added. Sure, you can buy biscuits in a can, and I do from time to time, but they’re so easy to make, it always makes me feel guilty. Oh. And who started this “flaky biscuits” crap? Biscuits aren’t supposed to be flaky.

Buttermilk biscuits

Add 4 T. of sugar, and you have shortcake.

4 c. flour (see below)
1 t. salt
1 T. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
1 c. lard, or butter, or a combination, COLD, cut into small pieces
1 c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375.

About the flour. Pastry flour is ideal, but it’s hard to find. Half cake and half all-purpose will do well; just all-purpose is fine.

Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and soda in a bowl. There is no point in sifting, but you may, if you like. Add the lard or butter, then cut in. Most pastry blenders are cheap wire that only works if the fat is far too soft, so either find a good one (good luck with that), use a fork, or best, use your hand.

When mixture looks like coarse cornmeal, dump the buttermilk in all at once, and stir just until it holds together.

Dump on a floured counter, and lightly flour the top. This should be handled as little as possible. Do NOT knead. Do NOT use a rolling pin. Pat the dough out about an inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter, and place biscuits on a baking pan. You may quickly and gently push the remaining dough together and pat it out, then cut more biscuits, but you may only do this once (do it a second time, and the biscuits will be nasty).

Bake 20-25 minutes. Eat with butter and sorghum (if you can find it — I had no idea sorghum was “regional” until we moved here).

I recently ran across an interesting cobbler recipe, a shortcake-y cobbler, not the kind of cobbler I grew up with. It’s basically berries baked with a shortcake crust on top. The shortcake is more absorbent than the flaky cobbler crust I grew up with, and soaks up the juices. Good stuff, and easy to make.

Blackberry (or raspberry) cobbler

4 c. (2 quarts) berries
2 - 2 1/4 c. sugar
6 T. cornstarch

2 c. flour
4 T. sugar
4 t. baking powder
1 stick COLD butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 c. milk

Preheat oven to 425.

Mix the berries, sugar, and cornstarch, and pour into a deep, buttered pan.

Mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder, and cut in the butter. Mix in the milk, stir just until it holds together, then put on a floured counter. Pat into more or less the size and shape of the top of the dish, lay over, fold any excess down the sides, and bake on a foil-covered baking sheet for 35 minutes, until top is done and berries are bubbly. This is really good even without vanilla ice cream.

No earrings for oil!

Dan Riehl gets the hat tip for this. Obama in June:

Opening our coastlines to offshore drilling would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has 3 percent of the world’s oil

July:

Obama defended his opposition to expanded offshore oil drilling, saying it wouldn’t provide “short-term relief or medium-term relief or, in fact, long-term relief.

And August:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling

Hope and change!

while the Democrats are at the Mall. Start here, if you are unaware of the GOP revolt yesterday. See here and here for more coverage.

Guess a 14 percent approval rating isn’t low enough for them.

From the Corner:

It’s too bad they’ve turned off the cameras and microphones in the House of Representatives because the Republicans are orchestrating an excellent political scene. As I was making my way over to the House chamber, I could hear the crowds inside chanting, “Drill! Drill! Drill!” Families, staff members and press were sitting in the gallery space above the floor listening to one speech after another - there were even some families and staff members sitting down on the floor - when one of the members came to the floor and said,

“The Capitol Police are going to be closing the Chamber in a few minutes, which means all of you are going to have to leave. But we’re not going to let that happen. Instead, we want everyone in the gallery - yes, everyone - to come down to the floor so they can’t kick you out of the Capitol. Members will be coming up to escort you downstairs right now.”

And sure enough, one member after another starting bringing groups of us down to the floor. The place was packed and people continue to come into the chamber as members were speaking without microphones from the central pit in front of the dais. The atmosphere reminded me of a session of Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons. People were shouting out from the crowd that they wanted to Democrats to come back to debate this issue, members were requesting the President to exercise his constitutional right to request the House to come back from recess to debate gas prices, and when I left the floor five or six Congressmen were hosting a press conference outside the chamber.

According to one speaker, forty-eight members had come to the floor to speak for a total of more than five hours.

And Mike Pence, who said, “We’ll be here through the break,” has a round up here, including pictures.

Best quote from Rep. McCotter: “This is the people’s House. This is not Pelosi’s politburo.”

McCain’s latest ad: The One!