Am I the only person who goes crazy buying fresh cranberries when they're on sale at Christmas, only to have a freezer full of unused cranberries come February?
Please say I'm not.
Anyway, I had to make a coffee cake to bring to a church brunch the other day. I'm not really much of a cake person.
But I am a cranberry-orange person. And a streusel person.
I'm also a butter person; the 9x13 version of this recipe uses an entire pound of butter. Sorry, not sorry.
This is a fairly sweet coffee cake; you could probably cut the sugar in the cake by at least a half cup, since you still have the streusel. It's also very dense and heavy; surprisingly hefty and filling for a cake.
You can easily halve the recipe for an 8x8 cake if you want something a little more suitable for a family, but the 9x13 size works great if you're bringing it to a brunch, as I was.
Cranberry Orange Coffee Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9x13 inch pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, 3 tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt.
In a different, small bowl, combine 2 cups sugar and the zest of 2 large oranges (or 4 tangerines/clementines). Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until fragrant; it will clump together a little bit as the sugar moistens from the zest.
Cream 2 sticks (1 cup) butter and the sugar mixture until fluffy, about three minutes.
Add in 4 large eggs, one at a time, beating each one into the mixture before adding the next. Beat until smooth.
Beat in 2 cups plain Greek yogurt and 2 tsp. vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing until just combined.
Fold in 2 cups fresh cranberries.
For the streusel:
In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar, and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Whisk together.
Cut 2 sticks (1 cup) butter into small pieces. Add the butter pieces to the flour/brown sugar mixture. Cut butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or your fingertips. You're looking for an even mixture of large crumbs--you know what streusel looks like.
Pour half of the coffee cake batter into the pan and top with half of the streusel. Spoon the remaining batter over the streusel, using a spatula to spread it gently across the pan. Top with the remaining streusel.
Bake until golden brown and it passes the toothpick test, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Showing posts with label baked. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baked. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Friday, February 7, 2014
Cottage Pie
Or, if you prefer, shepherd's pie. But shepherd's pie is traditionally made with lamb or mutton (hence the shepherd). If it's beef, it's cottage pie. #themoreyouknow
I posted recently on a Facebook group I'm in, saying that I had a pound of beef defrosted in the fridge and asking what I should make with it. My default ground beef dish, honestly, is spaghetti with meat sauce, but as delicious as that is, I wasn't really feeling it.
The responses came back overwhelmingly in favor of shepherd's pie. By which I knew they meant cottage pie. But whatever.
What with one thing and another, I didn't get around to making it before the DDH came home, and I was going to give up and just make spaghetti anyway. However, the DDH vehemently vetoed that idea, so cottage pie it was.
Luckily, it's pretty easy, and only takes about an hour, start to finish.
Cottage Pie
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Set approx. 3 pounds potatoes, chopped to boil. Once the water boils, let them boil for about twenty minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, melt 4 Tbs. butter in a large skillet on medium-high heat.
Add 1 onion, diced, 3 carrots, diced, and 3 cloves garlic, minced. Saute about five minutes or until the onions have softened and the carrots are beginning to get tender.
Add 1 pound ground beef. Cook another five minutes or until beef is browned.
Add 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper, 1 tsp. Worcestersire sauce, and 1/2 cup beef broth. Stir. Turn heat down to medium and simmer for about ten minutes. You can add up to additional 1/2 cup beef broth as necessary to keep the mixture moist.
(If you want to add additional vegetables like peas and corn, or if you're using a bag of frozen mixed veggies instead of the carrots, now would be the time to add them.)
By now the potatoes should be about done. Drain them, then mash them with 4 Tbs. butter and a sprinkling of salt to taste.
Spread the beef mixture in the bottom of a 7x11 casserole dish (or any dish that holds about two quarts. If you use a 9x13, you'll have a much thinner casserole; if you want that size, I'd use more like 1.5 pounds beef and 4 pounds of potatoes. This recipe would probably more or less fit in a 9x9 square pan as well, but it would be thicker. Anyway. I know the 7x11 isn't the most common size, but I like it for meals for two adults/one toddler, and also because it fits in my toaster oven and I hate my real oven.)
Ok, so we spread the beef and veggies, right? Top with mashed potatoes. Spread them to cover up the beef mixture, but then rough up the surface so there are some good ridges. Those are the parts that will get all brown and crispy and delicious.
The DDH claims the whole thing should have been topped with cheese, and he liberally grated Colby-Jack all over his portions, but I like it as is.
Bake at 400 degrees for thirty minutes or until nicely browned on top.
Try not to eat three servings the way I did.
Definitely don't leave your dog unattended so that he jumps up on the counters and eats all the leftovers. -_-
I posted recently on a Facebook group I'm in, saying that I had a pound of beef defrosted in the fridge and asking what I should make with it. My default ground beef dish, honestly, is spaghetti with meat sauce, but as delicious as that is, I wasn't really feeling it.
The responses came back overwhelmingly in favor of shepherd's pie. By which I knew they meant cottage pie. But whatever.
What with one thing and another, I didn't get around to making it before the DDH came home, and I was going to give up and just make spaghetti anyway. However, the DDH vehemently vetoed that idea, so cottage pie it was.
Luckily, it's pretty easy, and only takes about an hour, start to finish.
Cottage Pie
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Set approx. 3 pounds potatoes, chopped to boil. Once the water boils, let them boil for about twenty minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, melt 4 Tbs. butter in a large skillet on medium-high heat.
Add 1 onion, diced, 3 carrots, diced, and 3 cloves garlic, minced. Saute about five minutes or until the onions have softened and the carrots are beginning to get tender.
Add 1 pound ground beef. Cook another five minutes or until beef is browned.
Add 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper, 1 tsp. Worcestersire sauce, and 1/2 cup beef broth. Stir. Turn heat down to medium and simmer for about ten minutes. You can add up to additional 1/2 cup beef broth as necessary to keep the mixture moist.
(If you want to add additional vegetables like peas and corn, or if you're using a bag of frozen mixed veggies instead of the carrots, now would be the time to add them.)
By now the potatoes should be about done. Drain them, then mash them with 4 Tbs. butter and a sprinkling of salt to taste.
Spread the beef mixture in the bottom of a 7x11 casserole dish (or any dish that holds about two quarts. If you use a 9x13, you'll have a much thinner casserole; if you want that size, I'd use more like 1.5 pounds beef and 4 pounds of potatoes. This recipe would probably more or less fit in a 9x9 square pan as well, but it would be thicker. Anyway. I know the 7x11 isn't the most common size, but I like it for meals for two adults/one toddler, and also because it fits in my toaster oven and I hate my real oven.)
Ok, so we spread the beef and veggies, right? Top with mashed potatoes. Spread them to cover up the beef mixture, but then rough up the surface so there are some good ridges. Those are the parts that will get all brown and crispy and delicious.
The DDH claims the whole thing should have been topped with cheese, and he liberally grated Colby-Jack all over his portions, but I like it as is.
Bake at 400 degrees for thirty minutes or until nicely browned on top.
Try not to eat three servings the way I did.
Definitely don't leave your dog unattended so that he jumps up on the counters and eats all the leftovers. -_-
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Sriracha Garlic Bread
I like food. All kinds of food. I'm not sure I can pick a favorite food. I would have difficulty choosing a Top Ten list.
But if you put a gun to my head and forced me to write such a list, garlic bread would probably make the cut.
Well. Until last week, when I discovered something even better than garlic bread.
Sriracha garlic bread.
Clearly, the only thing fluffy French bread, creamy butter, garlic, and a nice toast in the oven needed to turn it into the food of angels was a shot of srirarcha. Oh, and cheese.
Unlike the sriracha shrimp recipe, this sriracha recipe is not particularly spicy. You get a zing, perhaps a playful nip of spice, but the butter, bread, and cheese all counteract it so it's not overwhelming or painful at all.
Try it.
You'll like it.
Sriracha Garlic Bread
Adapted from this recipe at Bon Appetit (which pretty much just says, make garlic bread. With sriracha).
Clearly, for garlic bread, you need a good bread. Something fluffy, with a nice crust. When the French bread at Reasor's goes on sale for a dollar, I usually stock up on several loaves and freeze the extra. The thinner loaves (long with a smaller diameter) work as well and will make cute little bite-size toasts that are great for serving at a party.
Make sure to cut nice thick slices, Texas toast style. You want to still have fluffy warm bread innards even once the outside is crisp and toasty.
Line a cookie sheet with foil (to cut down on cleanup) and lay your bread slices out on it.
Through trial and error (delicious, delicious trial and error), we discovered that you need about 1 Tbs. butter per slice of bread. You can get away with as little as 1/2 tablespoon, but why bother?
It helps if the butter is softened, but it's not necessary.
The DDH, a purist with much better knife skills than I, truly minced the garlic; I usually toss it in the garlic press because I'm lazy like that. If you like bigger chunks of garlic on your bread, I would use more and merely dice it.
But if you put a gun to my head and forced me to write such a list, garlic bread would probably make the cut.
Well. Until last week, when I discovered something even better than garlic bread.
Sriracha garlic bread.
Clearly, the only thing fluffy French bread, creamy butter, garlic, and a nice toast in the oven needed to turn it into the food of angels was a shot of srirarcha. Oh, and cheese.
Unlike the sriracha shrimp recipe, this sriracha recipe is not particularly spicy. You get a zing, perhaps a playful nip of spice, but the butter, bread, and cheese all counteract it so it's not overwhelming or painful at all.
Try it.
You'll like it.
 |
| Sriracha garlic bread with sriracha shrimp. |
Sriracha Garlic Bread
Adapted from this recipe at Bon Appetit (which pretty much just says, make garlic bread. With sriracha).
Clearly, for garlic bread, you need a good bread. Something fluffy, with a nice crust. When the French bread at Reasor's goes on sale for a dollar, I usually stock up on several loaves and freeze the extra. The thinner loaves (long with a smaller diameter) work as well and will make cute little bite-size toasts that are great for serving at a party.
 |
| The DDH cuts. |
Line a cookie sheet with foil (to cut down on cleanup) and lay your bread slices out on it.
 |
It helps if the butter is softened, but it's not necessary.
 |
Put some garlic, minced, in with your butter. This is a matter of taste. We used three big cloves for five pieces of bread. |
 |
| Minced garlic. |
Anyway. Whip in 1/2 to 1 Tbs. sriracha. Again, this is a matter of taste. The DDH says he used about a squeeze per tablespoon of butter. Remember that you can always add more, but you can't take it out if you use too much. :-)
You'll notice that the mixture is liquid in the picture. The recipe DDH used said to whisk the sriracha and garlic with melted butter, but through the aforementioned delicious, delicious trial and error, we discovered that it is more effective to whip the softened-not-melted butter, garlic, and sriracha using a handheld beater or a whisk and a strong whipping arm. The butter goes further this way when spread on the bread; it's hard to distribute liquified butter evenly to all the bread pieces.
 |
| You want whipped, not liquid, butter mixture. |
Spread the butter mixture on your bread slices. Make sure to butter both sides of all the breads!
 |
| Orange bread. |
Preheat the broiler; we discovered that low was safest with our broiler but broilers vary greatly.
Grate Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese over the bread slices.
 |
Broil for about three minutes on low. Broilers take bread from toast to terrible pretty quickly, so keep an eye on them.
Flip, add more cheese, and broil for another three minutes or so, until the cheese melts and the bread is golden brown around the edges.
 |
| Astute readers may notice there is more bread on this pan than in the pre-toasted pictures. I *told* you we learned that broiling bread on low was safer.... |
Those bits of crisped cheese between the bread slices are good eating, too. Just saying. |
Serve with a meal or as a delicious, delicious snack.
 |
| Sriracha garlic bread and soup. |
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Great Cookie Experiment: Sugar
If there's anything I've been craving this pregnancy, perhaps it would be cookies. It's hard to say, because I'm quite the cookie fan anyway.
I've been baking a lot of cookies lately, usually chocolate chip. I thought it would be fun to experiment with some cookie basics. For Science! Of course.
In Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, Michael Ruhlman presents the "essence of cookie" ratio: one part sugar to two parts butter to three parts flour. This produces a shortbread cookie, rather than the chewier drop cookie base you usually use to make chocolate chip cookies. But if I wanted to eventually divine The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, I decided I'd better start with the basics.
Plus, shortbread cookies are tasty, too.
The first experiment had two parts: one, to get a taste for the cookie this ratio produces at its most basic, aka the all-purpose flour, white sugar shortbread cookie.
Second, I wanted to vary some of the ingredients to get an idea of different sugars, fats, and flours affect the finished cookie product.
For the first night, the simplest substitutes: sugars.
I made a tiny batch of Ruhlman's essential cookie ratio, one each with white sugar, brown sugar, and honey.
The white sugar is basic, obvious, subtle, traditional. Brown sugar usually features prominently in the various drop cookie recipes I used, and I expected it to provide a bit of depth to the unadorned cookie flavor (remember, these cookies are otherwise completely unseasoned--no spices, no vanilla). I wasn't sure how honey would react, but was curious what effect it would have on both the texture--since it's a liquid instead of a powder--and the taste of the cookies.
Now, no scientific lab in the country would call this a rigorous or clean experiment. I made the batches one at a time; the butter was in varying stages of softness (and I know this effects the outcome of the cookies) and they were in the refrigerator chilling for varying lengths of time (but for several hours, so, probably that didn't matter that much).
Also, I didn't weigh the butter the first time but just cut it in half following the little tablespoon guidelines on the package; when I weighed the second half, I realized that it was likely .10 ounce or more larger than the "half" I used in the first batch. I don't know if that's a material degree of difference. My scale only measures to the .05 of an ounce anyway.
Oh, and I mixed them all in the same bowl without cleaning it between batches. So. Dangerous cross-contamination or whatever.
Full disclosure. ^_^
Anyway, for each batch I followed the same procedure:
Weigh out one ounce of sweetener.
Pour in a bowl with two ounces (ish) of butter.
Beat together until creamy.
Stir in three ounces of flour.
Work into dough. With the exception of the honey batch, this was hard to do. The doughs, with such a high proportion of flour to fat, were crumbly and dry. Perhaps more vigorous mixing would have helped to better incorporate the flour. Perhaps all shortbread doughs are like this--I usually make higher-fat drop cookie doughs.
Anyway. I did manage to mash them all into balls.
I tasted all of the doughs at this point, and the results were as I expected. The white sugar makes a dough that doesn't really taste like much--slightly buttery, slightly sweet, mostly just white. The brown sugar gave the cookie, still only subtly sweet, that toasty, molasses flavor that brown sugar imparts (because brown sugar is pretty much white sugar + molasses). The honey tasted...weird. The honey flavor was much stronger than even the brown sugar flavor, and perhaps because it's unexpected (you don't run into honey-sweetened cookies that often), it was jarring. More on that later.
The dough chilled while I went to Zumba and made dinner and ate dinner. Eventually I came back to it and preheated the oven.
I took the chilled doughs out and forced the DDH to sample them. You wouldn't think you'd have to force anyone to sample cookie doughs, but he doesn't like shortbread. He said the two sugar ones were fine, but he spit out the honey one and called it nasty. The DDH does not care for unexpected flavors. While he didn't particularly care for any of them, he thought the brown sugar one tasted best and (obviously) the honey one the worst. I gave him a bit more of the brown sugar dough to take the honey taste out of his mouth.
I made three balls out of each cookie dough, trying to make them roughly the same size, put them on my silpat-lined cookie sheet,
and baked for about twenty minutes. Usually you roll shortbread dough into a log, chill it, and slice flat round cookies off, but that was too much work with my three crumbly doughs; I figured that if I treated them all the same it would count for the purposes of the experiment.
The DDH repeated his performance tasting the final cookies; he maintains shortbread is kind of gross to start with, that the honey ones were disgusting, the white sugar ones tolerable, and the brown sugar ones mildly tasty.
I actually liked all three, though I agreed that the brown sugar would be my favorite.
The white sugar shortbread really is just the perfect essence of a shortbread cookie. It doesn't taste like anything except that short taste that defines shortbread, and as such would be the perfect backdrop for whatever flavorings you wished to use--citrus or spices or nuts. Lemon poppyseed shortbread? Cinnamon vanilla? Pistachio? All would be perfect with that base, which is not very sweet and thus makes a nice "grown-up" cookie that could showcase fun "grown-up" flavors.
The brown sugar shortbread was a better cookie just plain, because it had more flavor. It's still not very sweet, but the touch of molasses added depth. If I were to make plain shortbread cookies, I might make these, with a bit of vanilla and salt to punch up the flavor slightly. And brown sugar, I think, is the sugar of choice for drop cookies--it would go best with the chocolate.
And the honey cookies...they really do taste different. Technically, they were the most flavorful of the three, and once you adjust to the flavor, or expect it, that's a good thing. I could see serving them with jam or pats of butter like biscuits, with mint tea or something. I may never make them again because I think more people would agree with the DDH that they're disgusting than would agree with me that they're tasty, but I was glad to have tried the experiment. I'm not too beat up about eliminating honey as a sweetener in my future cookie experiments, anyway, since it's by far the most expensive of the three.
So there you have it, the Great Cookie Experiment Part One: Sugar! I plan to use the same ratio to vary the fat (butter vs. coconut oil vs. ?) and the flour (white/All-Purpose vs. whole wheat vs. half-and-half). Then, armed with those results, I plan to start playing with the ratio to see if I can achieve other cookie textures and whatever else we want to try!
I've been baking a lot of cookies lately, usually chocolate chip. I thought it would be fun to experiment with some cookie basics. For Science! Of course.
In Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, Michael Ruhlman presents the "essence of cookie" ratio: one part sugar to two parts butter to three parts flour. This produces a shortbread cookie, rather than the chewier drop cookie base you usually use to make chocolate chip cookies. But if I wanted to eventually divine The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, I decided I'd better start with the basics.
Plus, shortbread cookies are tasty, too.
The first experiment had two parts: one, to get a taste for the cookie this ratio produces at its most basic, aka the all-purpose flour, white sugar shortbread cookie.
Second, I wanted to vary some of the ingredients to get an idea of different sugars, fats, and flours affect the finished cookie product.
For the first night, the simplest substitutes: sugars.
I made a tiny batch of Ruhlman's essential cookie ratio, one each with white sugar, brown sugar, and honey.
The white sugar is basic, obvious, subtle, traditional. Brown sugar usually features prominently in the various drop cookie recipes I used, and I expected it to provide a bit of depth to the unadorned cookie flavor (remember, these cookies are otherwise completely unseasoned--no spices, no vanilla). I wasn't sure how honey would react, but was curious what effect it would have on both the texture--since it's a liquid instead of a powder--and the taste of the cookies.
Now, no scientific lab in the country would call this a rigorous or clean experiment. I made the batches one at a time; the butter was in varying stages of softness (and I know this effects the outcome of the cookies) and they were in the refrigerator chilling for varying lengths of time (but for several hours, so, probably that didn't matter that much).
Also, I didn't weigh the butter the first time but just cut it in half following the little tablespoon guidelines on the package; when I weighed the second half, I realized that it was likely .10 ounce or more larger than the "half" I used in the first batch. I don't know if that's a material degree of difference. My scale only measures to the .05 of an ounce anyway.
Oh, and I mixed them all in the same bowl without cleaning it between batches. So. Dangerous cross-contamination or whatever.
Full disclosure. ^_^
Anyway, for each batch I followed the same procedure:
Weigh out one ounce of sweetener.
 |
| White sugar. |
 |
| Brown sugar. |
 |
| Honey. |
Pour in a bowl with two ounces (ish) of butter.
 |
| Butter. |
 |
| White sugar; not beaten enough. |
 |
| Brown sugar. |
 |
| Honey. See how much smoother it is? |
 |
| Flour. |
 |
| White sugar. |
 |
| Brown sugar--not fully mixed. |
 |
| Honey. |
Anyway. I did manage to mash them all into balls.
 |
| White sugar. |
 |
| Brown sugar. |
 |
| Honey--a much more cohesive a dough than the others. |
The dough chilled while I went to Zumba and made dinner and ate dinner. Eventually I came back to it and preheated the oven.
I took the chilled doughs out and forced the DDH to sample them. You wouldn't think you'd have to force anyone to sample cookie doughs, but he doesn't like shortbread. He said the two sugar ones were fine, but he spit out the honey one and called it nasty. The DDH does not care for unexpected flavors. While he didn't particularly care for any of them, he thought the brown sugar one tasted best and (obviously) the honey one the worst. I gave him a bit more of the brown sugar dough to take the honey taste out of his mouth.
I made three balls out of each cookie dough, trying to make them roughly the same size, put them on my silpat-lined cookie sheet,
 |
| Left to right: Honey, brown sugar, white sugar. For some reason, the brown sugar was super crumbly compared to the white sugar--I feel like something else messed it up, since if anything brown sugar is more moist than white. |
 |
| Left to right: Honey, brown sugar, white sugar. |
I actually liked all three, though I agreed that the brown sugar would be my favorite.
The white sugar shortbread really is just the perfect essence of a shortbread cookie. It doesn't taste like anything except that short taste that defines shortbread, and as such would be the perfect backdrop for whatever flavorings you wished to use--citrus or spices or nuts. Lemon poppyseed shortbread? Cinnamon vanilla? Pistachio? All would be perfect with that base, which is not very sweet and thus makes a nice "grown-up" cookie that could showcase fun "grown-up" flavors.
 |
| White sugar shortbread cookies. |
 |
| Brown sugar shortbread cookies. |
 |
| Honey shortbread cookies. You can see the texture is much different from the dry sugar cookies. |
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Homemade Biscuits
I make things more difficult than they really are.
I make bread (admittedly mostly in my breadmaker) and pizza dough and all kinds of things from scratch. I make cookies and cakes and brownies and pancakes not-from-mixes (and also from mixes, especially if the mix is Trader Joe's Truffle Fudge Brownie Mix).
But somehow I always thought biscuits were complicated. So we didn't eat them, except on the exceedingly rare occasion that I would buy the little refrigerated tubes o' biscuit.
YOU GUYS.
Biscuits are not complicated to make. I don't know why I thought they were. If you skip the resting step (and have a magically fast preheating oven), you could have warm biscuits on the table in thirty minutes or less. And even given resting and preheating the oven, these take less than an hour.
Also, they're delicious.
With honey.
Homemade Biscuits
Adapted from The Simple Homemaker's Sleeping Baby Biscuits recipe. You should check out her cute post, especially if even this is sounds like too much work--she also has a recipe for Screaming Baby Biscuits (one-handed dump-and-mix process), which might show up here in a few months! ;-)
Mix in a nice big bowl 2 cups flour (I used white but will be experimenting with ratios of whole wheat), 3-4 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar (for a fluffier biscuit; if you don't have cream of tartar, make sure to use 4 tsp. of baking powder. I used 4 tsp. baking powder AND the cream of tartar 'cause I like my biscuits fluffy. And because my cream of tartar is ancient and I have no idea if it actually still works anymore).
Cut in 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter. Cutting means using a pastry cutter (pictured) or a couple of table knives in a rocking sort of motion. The end result will look like coarse crumbs, with tiny bits of cold butter coated in flour. You can also just soften the butter in the microwave and stir it in with your spatula, but that will make the biscuits less flaky. And a flaky biscuit is pretty much the ideal for me.
In a measuring cup (or a small bowl), mix 2/3 cup milk (or water) and 1 Tbs. honey.
Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients, and mix until moistened and it holds together somewhat.
Around this time, depending on your oven, you should preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lightly flour your counter and dump the dough out onto it.
Knead approximately twelve times. To knead, you gather your dough into a mound, then punch it in the middle, pushing half of it back away from you.
Then pick up that back half, fold it back onto the rest of the dough, and repeat, changing the direction from which you fold the dough.
Flatten the dough and use a biscuit cutter or the top of a glass to cut out a dozen biscuits. Or eleven biscuits and one the-rest-of-the-dough-mashed-into-a-rough-biscuit-shape runt. It will depend on how thinly you flatten your dough and the diameter of your biscuit cutter/water glass.
Place on a baking sheet (I advise a Silpat thing, if you have one) about two inches apart. TSH says you can stick them all close together in a pan for softer, pull-apart style biscuits. If you'd like, brush the tops with melted butter or milk.
Let rest twenty minutes before baking, though they will be perfectly edible if you toss them in the oven right away.
Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes or until slightly browned (or however you like your biscuits).
Eat plain, buttered, with jam, with honey, topped with an egg and bacon...however you eat them, they're delicious!
I've been making them in the evening and eating them with honey or eggs for breakfast, and with honey for an afternoon snack or a dessert.
I make bread (admittedly mostly in my breadmaker) and pizza dough and all kinds of things from scratch. I make cookies and cakes and brownies and pancakes not-from-mixes (and also from mixes, especially if the mix is Trader Joe's Truffle Fudge Brownie Mix).
But somehow I always thought biscuits were complicated. So we didn't eat them, except on the exceedingly rare occasion that I would buy the little refrigerated tubes o' biscuit.
YOU GUYS.
Biscuits are not complicated to make. I don't know why I thought they were. If you skip the resting step (and have a magically fast preheating oven), you could have warm biscuits on the table in thirty minutes or less. And even given resting and preheating the oven, these take less than an hour.
Also, they're delicious.
With honey.
 |
| Biscuits and honey. |
Homemade Biscuits
Adapted from The Simple Homemaker's Sleeping Baby Biscuits recipe. You should check out her cute post, especially if even this is sounds like too much work--she also has a recipe for Screaming Baby Biscuits (one-handed dump-and-mix process), which might show up here in a few months! ;-)
Mix in a nice big bowl 2 cups flour (I used white but will be experimenting with ratios of whole wheat), 3-4 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar (for a fluffier biscuit; if you don't have cream of tartar, make sure to use 4 tsp. of baking powder. I used 4 tsp. baking powder AND the cream of tartar 'cause I like my biscuits fluffy. And because my cream of tartar is ancient and I have no idea if it actually still works anymore).
 |
| Ingredients. |
 |
| Cut your cold butter into smaller pieces and scatter them in the bowl of flour+. |
 |
| Pastry cutter. Rock it back and forth to simultaneously chop and mix the butter into the flour mixture. |
 |
| It resembles coarse crumbs when you're done, but still may have larger chunks of butter and loose flour. |
 |
| Mixing in the measuring cup saves you a dish. |
 |
| This time it was a little gloppy; with wheat flour it's often a little dusty. Fine either way. |
Lightly flour your counter and dump the dough out onto it.
 |
| I flour a silpat just to help define my working area and because who knows how sanitary my counters really are. |
 |
| Pile o' dough. |
 |
| Mound o' dough. |
 |
| Kneading is good stress relief. |
Then pick up that back half, fold it back onto the rest of the dough, and repeat, changing the direction from which you fold the dough.
 |
| Pick up the back half and fold forward. |
 |
| New mound o' dough. |
 |
| Punch again, maybe toward one side. |
 |
| Pick it up and fold again. |
Flatten the dough and use a biscuit cutter or the top of a glass to cut out a dozen biscuits. Or eleven biscuits and one the-rest-of-the-dough-mashed-into-a-rough-biscuit-shape runt. It will depend on how thinly you flatten your dough and the diameter of your biscuit cutter/water glass.
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| No need for a rolling pin. Just stretch and mash it a bit. |
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| Drinking glass biscuit cutter. |
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| Resting. |
Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes or until slightly browned (or however you like your biscuits).
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| Lightly toasted. Whole wheat biscuits will be darker, and these could have been left in a little longer with no problem. |
Eat plain, buttered, with jam, with honey, topped with an egg and bacon...however you eat them, they're delicious!
I've been making them in the evening and eating them with honey or eggs for breakfast, and with honey for an afternoon snack or a dessert.
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| Nom nom nom. |
What's something you thought was "too hard" to cook that turned out to be super easy?
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