I have been making cream biscuits for many years. My mother made wonderful old fashioned biscuits (and pie crust dough) but I never mastered either. Thus, my use of an alternative recipe. The first cream biscuit recipe I used called for self-rising flour, heavy cream, and sugar (optional). I didn't always have self-rising flour, so was quite happy when America's Test Kitchen came out with a recipe using regular flour. It is quite similar to yours except for the corn starch. However, unlike your recipe, they say the dough actually benefits from a little extra handling. I had always used my mother's adage about not handling the dough for the most tender biscuits. But that one tip made a big difference in how high (much higher) my biscuits rose during the baking. Is it the cornstarch in your recipe that accounts for the difference? No, cornstarch is there for tenderizing, not rising. If you like the ATK method, I say stick with it - all of us bakers do things a tiny bit differently. For me, I can feel the difference in the dough when it's handled more rather than less - it gets tough. I'd rather have a slightly lower-rising biscuit that's more tender; perhaps others prefer a higher-rising biscuit that's a bit tougher. Each to his own, eh? PJH

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