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When I was searching for something to eat this morning, I saw lots of things to make a good sandwich with (smoked turkey breast, buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, gouda, goat cheese, prosciutto, etc.) and started craving one of my sandwich concoctions--I do make fabulous sandwiches. I was sad that I had no bread in the house, having eaten the last of a baguette late last night when I got hungry and, feeling very lazy, the last thing I wanted to do was to get dressed and go buy bread. So I thought about baking bread. I started thinking about various quick breads that might also make a good sandwich and got stuck on biscuits. Not only did it seem that a biscuit with mayo, tomato, turkey and gouda would probably be pretty damn tasty, I started craving just the biscuits themselves.
You all know how I love to cook and bake and if you've been reading for any length of time you know I have no trouble with quick breads, yeast breads, pie crusts or other pastry. Yet I have always been a drop-biscuit-from-Bisquick-mix kind of person. It's the ease of this method (and I do find the biscuits made this way tasty) that always wins over making my own from scratch. And even on the few occasions I've made biscuits from scratch, I've made drop biscuits, just so I wouldn't have to knead the dough and then clean up the mess from that. Lazy, I know. But today I was craving *real* biscuits, the kind that are round and tall and fluffy yet mouth-melty sexy. Oh gods.
I started searching for a recipe that had the ingredients listed by weight, because I've found that I always get better results when baking if I weigh. But alas, Americans are not into weighing, and even Alton Brown's recipe used volume measurements.
I searched my recipe database for biscuit recipes and came up with about ten of them. But which to use? I ended up flipping a coin to decide between what I decided were the two best candidates. The winner was from a book called Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham. I have no idea who Marion Cunningham is, but damn does she have a good biscuit recipe!
Still missing a printer, I wrote only the bare essentials of the recipe down (her version is greatly detailed).
1/3 cup shortening, plus extra
2 cups AP flour, plus extra
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
Oven 225 C (450 F).
Stir dry ingredients together with a fork.
Add shortening and cut in.
Add milk and stir. Don't overmix.
Lightly knead about 10 times on a floured surface.
Cut out biscuits and place with a little space between them on a greased baking pan.
Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
A recipe like that would probably confound someone like V but is was probably more info than I needed. :P I could have done it with just the ingredient list and the oven temperature. ;) When I patted the dough out to a 1/2 inch thickness, ready to cut out the biscuits, I suddenly realized that I had nothing to cut them with, so I ended up using a Guinness pint glass.
They came out of the oven after a bit more than 15 minutes, beautifully browned and fluffed up. I took a few photos before spreading two of them with butter and devouring them. The biscuits were everything I wanted--a bit crispy on the outside and the fluffy insides did that sexy melting thing in my mouth. Is it possible to have oral sex with food? I think I just had oral sex with biscuits!
The recipe made eight biscuits and I only ate two, so I'm thinking forget the sandwich idea, go buy some sausage and make some sausage gravy and have biscuits and gravy for dinner. Ye Gods! I love knowing how to cook. :)
( two photos )
You all know how I love to cook and bake and if you've been reading for any length of time you know I have no trouble with quick breads, yeast breads, pie crusts or other pastry. Yet I have always been a drop-biscuit-from-Bisquick-mix kind of person. It's the ease of this method (and I do find the biscuits made this way tasty) that always wins over making my own from scratch. And even on the few occasions I've made biscuits from scratch, I've made drop biscuits, just so I wouldn't have to knead the dough and then clean up the mess from that. Lazy, I know. But today I was craving *real* biscuits, the kind that are round and tall and fluffy yet mouth-melty sexy. Oh gods.
I started searching for a recipe that had the ingredients listed by weight, because I've found that I always get better results when baking if I weigh. But alas, Americans are not into weighing, and even Alton Brown's recipe used volume measurements.
I searched my recipe database for biscuit recipes and came up with about ten of them. But which to use? I ended up flipping a coin to decide between what I decided were the two best candidates. The winner was from a book called Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham. I have no idea who Marion Cunningham is, but damn does she have a good biscuit recipe!
Still missing a printer, I wrote only the bare essentials of the recipe down (her version is greatly detailed).
1/3 cup shortening, plus extra2 cups AP flour, plus extra
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
Oven 225 C (450 F).
Stir dry ingredients together with a fork.
Add shortening and cut in.
Add milk and stir. Don't overmix.
Lightly knead about 10 times on a floured surface.
Cut out biscuits and place with a little space between them on a greased baking pan.
Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
A recipe like that would probably confound someone like V but is was probably more info than I needed. :P I could have done it with just the ingredient list and the oven temperature. ;) When I patted the dough out to a 1/2 inch thickness, ready to cut out the biscuits, I suddenly realized that I had nothing to cut them with, so I ended up using a Guinness pint glass.
They came out of the oven after a bit more than 15 minutes, beautifully browned and fluffed up. I took a few photos before spreading two of them with butter and devouring them. The biscuits were everything I wanted--a bit crispy on the outside and the fluffy insides did that sexy melting thing in my mouth. Is it possible to have oral sex with food? I think I just had oral sex with biscuits!
The recipe made eight biscuits and I only ate two, so I'm thinking forget the sandwich idea, go buy some sausage and make some sausage gravy and have biscuits and gravy for dinner. Ye Gods! I love knowing how to cook. :)
( two photos )
