Every once in a while what I really crave for breakfast is a fresh, hot-from-the-oven biscuit. I almost exclusively make biscuits on Sunday morning since they're a little bit of a pain to make. Pulsing the butter into pea-sized pieces, being careful to not over-mix, rolling and cutting the biscuit rounds... I mean, it's all worth it for a good biscuit, but still not something I feel up to doing on, say, a weekday morning just because.
THAT HAS ALL CHANGED.
This weekend I ran across a recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog for Cream Biscuits. Basically you whisk together your dry ingredients and instead of messing around with butter, you just use heavy cream instead.
The benefits of using what is basically cold liquid butter are awesome - you don't have to pull out your food processor or cut in the butter by hand, you can easily mix up the biscuit dough in one bowl, and you don't have to worry about your butter starting to melt in a warm kitchen.
Next up I used a suggestion from a Cook's Illustrated biscuit recipe and instead of pulling out a juice glass ('cause I'm classy) and cutting the biscuits into rounds and then re-rolling the scraps and cutting a second set of biscuits that are always a little tougher than the first ones, I just patted the biscuit dough into a rough rectangle and cut the biscuits into squares.
No re-rolling the dough! No wasted dough!
Combining these 2 biscuit techniques meant I mixed up super tender and delicious homemade biscuits in one bowl and in just a few minutes.
In fact.... it was SO easy now I'm a little worried that I'll end up eating way more biscuits than can possibly be good for me. ;-)
Cream Biscuits
From Smitten Kitchen
3 tablespoons (45 grams) melted butter
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the surface
1 tablespoon (15 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon (15 grams) sugar (optional)
1 1/2 cups (355 ml) heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt butter in a small pot or microwave dish, and set aside. Whisk together two cups flour, the baking powder, salt and (if using) sugar into a large bowl. Fold in 1 1/4 cups cream. If the dough is not soft or easily handled, fold in the remaining 1/4 cup cream, little by little. (I ended up using all 1 1/2 cups.)
Turn dough onto a floured surface, and pat it into a rectangle that is roughly the thickness of about 1 inch. Cut into 8 - 10 squares. Dip the top of each biscuit in melted butter and arrange on the baking sheet. Bake until golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
Ah! So the cream replaces the butter. Very clever. Sounds a bit like my ricotta biscuits except I add an egg too. Just mix the wet and mix the dry, stir together and you have biscuit dough! I like your idea of patting into a rectangle and cutting into squares. Another quick-and-easy tip!
ReplyDeleteMm'mm... I love ricotta but my husband doesn't, so I rarely have it in the house. I usually have some cream on hand, though. I'll have to try ricotta biscuits to see how they compare!
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