It's a rare occasion when we link to Fast Food Maven around here, but I was intrigued by the recent article post handmade biscuits at Carl's Jr.
After all, everything in a fast-food chain comes preportioned and pre-dumbed-down so that anyone can do it, right? Creativity and individuality are swear words in the modern American fast-food parlance, so what the hell is Carl's Jr. playing at with this business of making biscuits in-store every day?
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I arrived at my local Carl's Jr. shortly after 6 a.m. and asked the person
behind the counter if the biscuits were really handmade. Maybe it was
because it had been open for exactly seven minutes and no one had gotten a
chance to crack into the (terrible) coffee yet, but it took a few tries
to ask a couple of basic questions. Yes, they're made in the store. He
wasn't sure he could tell me how often, or whether it starts from whole
ingredients, or what fat was used. (It's partially hydrogenated soybean
oil–in other words, shortening.)
The ingredients list published
by Hardee's is actually relatively innocuous, and the biscuits are surprisingly good. Fluffy, hot, nice crust on the outside, not
too baking powdery. If you've ever had a biscuit that tasted slightly
metallic, that's what it's from. By themselves, they were a little bland,
but for fast food, they were very good.
Biscuits aren't complicated things to make–really, it's flour, baking
powder, baking soda and salt with fat (shortening, butter or lard)
rubbed into it, then mixed with buttermilk. It's unusual, though, to see a fast-food restaurant following a recipe that millions of Southerners know and actually succeed with it.
You can't get the biscuits by themselves, though–they come as sandwiches or as a side with jam. I bought one of each and took them to the early risers in my office for their judgment.
The sausage biscuit was awful. I mean, awful.
Even the best homemade Southern biscuit couldn't redeem that saline,
bone-dry hockey puck. Worse, the biscuit somehow
amplified the saltiness and the overwhelming sourness of the sausage.
Nobody in the group liked it.
The ham was far, far better, with a
little hint of porky salt accentuating the egg, cheese and biscuit. The
same went, though less so, for the bacon, which was flimsy and
gossamer-thin, yet still flaccid and without any structure at all.
Finally,
there was the jam biscuit, which had a dollop of strawberry jam in a
divot in the top and stripes of white icing slashed
across it. The jam was cloying, and the icing didn't help–for Pete's
sake, Carl's Jr., you've got a pretty good thing here. Just sell the
damn thing plain and offer butter (real butter, thank you, none of that
Country Crock garbage) and honey.
And thus concludes one of the only positive stories I've ever written about fast food. I'd actually go out of my way to eat one of those ham biscuits over, say, an Egg McMuffin, and that's saying a lot.
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