Baking Biscuits

When my grandfather moved out of his home in Delaware after my grandmother passed away, my family was able to take whatever items they wanted before everything was donated to charity or sold.  I met my father at the train station in Wilmington in a rental van we would use to bring all my loot back to Washington D.C. 

My father and I had the run of the house for the day and we went through pretty much everything.  I was on the lower end of the priority list for taking things, so there wasn’t much left.  But when you are a college student who has just moved into an apartment the 60’s and 70’s décor, housewares, and furniture your grandfather owns is very exciting.  I chose with awe some of the golden colored wine glasses used only for special occasions – two sizes.  Which I later found out my grandmother had collected at gas stations as part of some kind of promotion in the early 60’s.  I nabbed the two twin beds for the new apartment, a turquoise Chinese tea set and some cookbooks.

I had just gotten into cooking, and so I did not understand the treasure trove of cooking references that my grandmother had collected over the years.  I figured I would grab some that looked interesting and then leave the rest.  I am sure I probably left behind a first edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  What I now have in my possession is an early copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, the one with the red checks and in 3 ring binder format as well as a first edition of the Physiology of Taste as translated by M.F.K. Fischer (this may actually be worth a little money).  But it is the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that I remembered fondly, and one that I use still for basic recipes. 

My grandmother studied home economics at Cornell.  She may have taught for a few years before having children and practicing home economy.  However, unlike where you think this story is going, my grandmother was not the “make it from scratch” home ec. teacher in June Cleaver attire.  She loved convenience foods.  A classic meal during the holidays or any family gathering was canned ham, canned pineapple, macaroni and cheese (this was just cooked elbow macaroni tossed with shredded cheese – no sauce, no gooey stringy cheese – I hated macaroni and cheese for a very long time) and canned crescent rolls.  Perhaps a salad or some frozen vegetables. 

So as you can see, I did not necessarily expect to find gastronomic treasures in my grandmother’s library of cookbooks – although I still wonder what I would have found had I known what to look for at the time.  However that Better Homes and Gardens cookbook did get a lot of play as a reference for cookies, roasting temperatures of meats and so on.  I prefer that cookbook with all its jewel-toned pictures and recipes for far more Jell-o molds than anyone could possibly need than any more recent edition.  And it is to this cookbook that I turn when I need recipes for biscuits or boiled frosting or everyday cake. 

Today I am going to tell you about the biscuits.  So many people are so ardent about biscuits that I was rather hesitant to try and make them.  What if they are not fluffy, what if they turn into hockey pucks, what if they just taste bad – all of these were very real fears that inhibited my biscuit making endeavors.  The trickiest part of it is those six words in each biscuit recipe – do not over work the dough.  How are you supposed to know!!  Where is that elusive fine line between not well mixed and over worked?  Will the dough change colors?  Will they become inedible?  Will the oven explode with terribly formed lumps of dough!  The horror!!

Biscuits are in fact not that scary.  The problem I realized is that most people don’t get tactile with the biscuits early on the in the process, and herein lies the secret to not overworked biscuits; use your hands!  After cutting in the butter, toss those two knives or pastry blender aside and rub the pieces of butter into the flour with your fingers.  This is (1) a lot less time consuming (2) a better way to determine the proper point at which to add the milk and (3) is the only sure-fire way to add love into your biscuits. 

Once you have the whole thing down, you will be able to whip up biscuits at the drop of a hat. 

Biscuits Supreme
As adapted from Better Homes and Gardens 1968

I have begun adding other ingredients and flavors to my biscuits.  Try adding any kind of fresh herb, or pesto to the biscuits.  Scallions and chives are wonderful for biscuits on top of chicken pot pie or other casseroles*. The green biscuits pictured above have a parsley pesto in them.

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ c. butter, cut into ¼” cubes
1 Tb and 1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. cream of tartar
½ tsp. salt
2/3 c. milk (anything but whole milk works fine), plus extra for brushing
2 Tb. Chopped herbs or pesto, optional

Preheat the oven to 450°.

Combine flour, baking powder, cream of tartar and salt in a large bowl.  Add butter and begin to cut in, when the butter pieces are reduced in size by half, begin using your hands.  Rub the pieces of butter quickly between your fingers to break them up, and toss the flour over the pieces.  Continue until the butter is mostly worked in, and the flour seems a bit heavier looking – there will still be a few larger clumps of butter, but that is ok. 

Next, make a well in the center of the flour, add in the milk and the herbs or pesto at this point if using.  To stir, use a fork and moving around the inside of the well, begin pulling in flour from all sides of the bowl.  Continue to stir with the fork until the dough is all wet and very difficult to stir. 

Move the dough out onto a floured board and knead a few times to combine the dough into a cohesive ball.  3-6 times should be all you need.  Roll the dough out to about 1” thick and cut into rounds.  Reshape the dough into a ball and roll out again, cutting new biscuits until there is only enough dough for one last biscuit – this one can be hand shaped. 

Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and brush with a little milk or melted butter.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating mid-way through if necessary.  Serve warm from the oven!

*You can add these biscuits to anything you plan to place in the oven to bake.  For an easy chicken and biscuit recipe use the above biscuit dough and place onto precooked chicken, veggies and a lightly thickened gravy.  Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits are brown on top and the chicken mixture is thick and bubbling.

Buns in the Oven

I hope you are marinating your corned beef from last year’s recipe.  Mine is right now, as we ‘speak’ slowly braising away in my crockpot at home.  I actually managed to corn it for the appropriate amount of time this year… I know I may be jumping the gun on serving the corned beef tonight rather than on the 17^th, but why not right?  So this year, I have for you a hot cross buns recipe.  It comes from the cookbook as I got from a friend during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  I shared with you her fish pie recipe.  But, I neglected to tell you about her. 

Joyce McRaye was a presenter during the Scotland exhibit in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival during the summer of 2003.  Imagine Mrs. Doubtfire.  Yup that’s Joyce.  And although this may sound corny, her and I became instant friends during her two weeks spent with me in a tent kitchen on the National Mall.  And here’s where I get really corny; in the Anne of Green Gables series (I know, it’s silly but I love them) there’s a phrase that sums it up nicely: The race that knows Joseph.  In the books they don’t really even explain it, but there are some people in life that when you meet them you just know they are a kindred soul. 

Joyce may have been 50 years my senior but we were kindred souls.  We got scolded multiple times for giggling too loudly behind the stage when other people were presenting.  And when I had to interview her during a cooking segment we would just laugh and tell each other inside jokes –it was not my best interview. 

As a parting gift Joyce gave me her apron, oven mitt, and a cookbook she had helped develop with the Scottish Women’s Rural Association.  I have consulted that cookbook many times for various recipes.  And the oven mitt is the only one I use, every day.  The wonderful thing about the cookbook however is the bluntness with which the recipes are written.  As a rural Scottish woman you were expected to know some basics and these recipes are mostly just ideas in paragraph form for various dishes.

I decided this year for St. Patrick’s Day to make hot cross buns.  I know using a Scottish cookbook seems a bit heretical, but what the heck right? The buns were hearty with a nice flavor.  Not at all like the rolls you see in the grocery store around this time of year.  If you need something to fill you up prior to imbibing gallons of green beer on Saturday, this is a great way to get things started.

Scottish Hot Cross Buns

The recipe calls for the milk to be ‘blood-warm’. Which I love. You would never see a temperature of an ingredient having anything to do with blood or death here in America. But a Scottish rural woman would know exactly how warm that would be, having probably slaughtered many an animal for dinner. I will spare you and call the temperature lukewarm. Also, this recipe is in grams – there are some conversion tools online if you don’t have a scale.

250ml lukewarm milk
¾ package yeast
2 Tb butter
1 Tb sugar
2 eggs, divided
½ tsp. salt
350 grams flour, plus more for kneading
50 grams golden raisins
50 grams candied orange peel, chopped (if you have lemon or lime, that’s fine too)
1 dash cinnamon
1 pinch all spice
1 pinch ground cloves

For the Glaze:
2 parts powdered sugar to one part orange juice

Dissolve the yeast in half of the milk, add sugar and let sit for about 5 minutes. Melt the butter in the remaining milk and add to the yeast along with the salt and one egg. Stir together to break up the egg, and then add in the flour. As the dough comes together, move onto a floured surface and knead for about five minutes, or until the dough is smooth and only slightly tacky.

Place dough in a clean bowl and loosely cover with a kitchen towel. Allow to rise for about 45 minutes, or until doubled in size. Once rise, punch down the dough and add in raisins, candied peel and spices. Gently knead together; you may have to push in any escaping raisins or bits of peel.

Cut dough into 8 equal pieces and form into balls. Place in a parchment paper lined 9x13 pan, cover loosely with a towel and allow to double, about an hour.

Preheat oven to 450°. Beat the remaining egg with a tablespoon of water. Brush the buns with the egg prior to baking. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through until golden brown on top.

While the buns are baking whisk together the orange juice and sugar. Once buns are cooked and cooled slightly, brush lightly with glaze, and if you are so inclined drizzle a thicker x over the tops of the buns.





Happy New Year. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to begin another new year. To get things started right I thought I would share another breakfast recipe with you. Because, if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then it must be at least equally so for the first breakfast of the New Year.

I know some people like to eat foods that will bring them luck in the New Year; black eyed peas, marzipan pigs, and my personal favorite, pickled herring. Yes, that’s right pickled herring. Now, I am not one to turn away foods, but this is one point where I might make an exception. I can clearly remember my grandmother plucking a slimy silver chunk of fish from a bowl at the stroke of midnight, tilting her head back and swallowing. Well, she most likely used a fork and a small plate, but in my childhood memories, she used her fingers and swallowed those suckers whole. I have no idea if she liked pickled herring, but I do know that she liked disgusting her granddaughters with them.

Apparently my grandmothers’ family believed that eating pickled herring at midnight on New Year’s Eve would bring good luck and good fortune in the coming year. And it would be just like her to make sure she ate one every year at midnight whether she wanted to or not. It was the proper thing to do. Since my grandmother passed away no one has even mentioned procuring a jar of pickled herring, and I don’t think anyone misses the smell.

For me ringing in the New Year is about having fun with family and or friends. And as long as I can stay awake until midnight (naps are allowed in my book) then it was a successful night. This year Joe and I had friends come visit us in Maine for the holiday and it was wonderful. Complete with sparkly New Year’s Eve tops for all the girls and coordinating Crayola hair extensions purchased from the local grocery store. Yes Crayola apparently makes hair extensions.

And then in the morning we all awoke at a reasonably late hour, decided to nix the polar bear plunge idea, and cracked open the last two bottles of champagne for mimosas. Using up the holiday Panettone in French toast was a great way to get ready to sit and watch hours upon hours of sports.

French Toast Panettone
Panettone is a sweet Italian egg bread studded with candied fruits and nuts and can be found in pretty much any grocery store around the holidays. The idea for this came when Joe and I had purchased a large panettone and were unable to eat it before it went stale. Any kind of stale bread makes great French toast.

1 panettone
4 eggs
¾ c whole milk (or half and half)
¼ c cugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Bacon grease or butter for cooking.

Slice the panettone into reasonable sized pieces, or if you like the comedic large slices, go ahead and use those. If the bread is fresh allow it to sit out for about an hour before cooking so that the slices are a bit stale.

Whisk the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.

Preheat a griddle over medium heat and add bacon grease or butter (I usually make bacon in shifts to keep the griddle perpetually coated in grease – remember the pancakes recipe? Yeah.)

Dredge the sliced of panettone in the egg and milk mixture and carefully place onto griddle. Cook for about 2 minutes per side, flipping occasionally. Be sure the bread is cooked through - it should be a little stiff and should not ooze any of the egg when you press it with the back of a spatula.

Repeat dredging slices and cooking until all of the bread has been used up. Place cooked French toast on a platter and keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

Maui Musings

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you. In fact I even had grand plans to post from Maui.  But let’s be honest, when you’re in Maui the idea of sitting in front of a computer for a couple of hours is not very appealing.  There were sunrises and sunsets to watch, sea turtles to swim with and lots and lots of mai tais to consume.  A girl can stay pretty busy on vacation.

This is not to say that we did not cook anything while away.  In fact after our friends’ (fabulous) wedding we prepared most of our meals in the rental home.  And aside from preparing far too much food for the eight people staying in the home, it was quite nice and relaxing to make, or help make dinner each night. 

But there was one recipe in particular that I had been thinking about before going off to Hawaii.  This actually happens to me quite a bit.  I think of a recipe and I play around with it in my head, and it won’t leave my thoughts until I make it.  This is what I day dream about on down time – food.  So I had this idea to make a Hawaiian style French toast.  I am going to share it with you here, although it is not quite perfected yet, so if you have any suggestions or modifications you think I should make, please let me know. 

The nice thing about this French toast is that it is very simple to make, and smells wonderful in the morning.  We had a little sugar ant problem and on the morning I made this French toast, they were running around the door of the oven furiously.  I think if they could have gone in after the pans they would have.  And if ants know anything, it is where to find the most sweet and delicious foods in a kitchen. 

Also, I would like to apologize for not having pictures of the French toast, but alas, the light wasn’t quite as good (and I was slightly embarrassed to be lining up beauty shots of breakfast). 

Maui Toast

A friend suggested adding shredded or desiccated coconut to this.  Personally I am not a huge fan of shredded coconut, but if you are, please try it.  I also thought that adding a small amount of cream of coconut to milk and eggs might enhance the coconut flavor.  Oh and you will need to prepare this the night before and let it sit in the fridge, so plan accordingly.

1 loaf King’s Hawaiian Bread (or other soft sweet bread)

1 can coconut milk
2 eggs
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped macadamia nuts
Butter for greasing pan(s)
 

Slice the bread into long slices and allow to dry out for about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile grease a 9x13” pan with butter, using more pans if necessary.  In a large bowl, whisk coconut, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla until combined. 

Place sliced bread into the pan(s) and pour the egg mixture evenly over all the slices.  Press the slices down to make sure every part has come into contact with the egg mixture.  Cover pan(s) and refrigerate overnight. 

In the morning, take the pan(s) out of the fridge and let warm up, while you preheat the oven to 350°.  Sprinkle the chopped macadamia nuts over the top of the slices and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until the bread is golden and the smell is waking people up.  Serve with maple or coconut syrup.

The Bakery

When Joe and I were living in California, I worked at a bakery. I believe that I have mentioned that here before, but never directly referenced the bakery. It’s funny actually, when we were making our way across the country I must have mentioned to Joe that it might be nice to work at a bakery. You see, I had read some book about a woman who leaves her job, heads to a new state and works as a bread baker. The book wasn’t that good, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of working in a bakery.

Getting settled in CA was a pretty big obstacle for me; terrible neighborhood, no money, no job, no internet but lots of cockroaches. Sounds dreamy doesn’t it? But we made it through, fairly unscathed and now I have some fun stories about it – so that makes it all worthwhile.

After getting the gas turned on in the apartment, the next most important thing was finding a job. In applying for jobs, I scoured newspaper ads, and walked to the public library to wait with the other colorful residents of Long Beach for internet access an hour at a time. This forced me to streamline my applications and made me a wizard at blocking out the loud mutterings of a homeless man that always seemed to need the internet at the same time as me.

Before I got the job at the bakery, I had applied to a company that sells items to prison commissaries (travel to prisons included) and an internet dating site (which asked me if I would be able to lie to people in order to convince them to continue paying for the program). I got neither of these jobs, thank goodness. But when I looked online and saw a bakery sales person position open, I jumped at the chance.

Rossmoor Pastries is in Signal Hill, and has been going strong for over 20 years. After I interviewed, one of the owners of the bakery told me that as soon as she saw me she knew I belonged at the bakery. Now, don’t get me wrong I had some ups and downs there, but overall it was a wonderful (and tasty) experience. I sampled my way through endless pastries, goodies, and pant sizes all while making friends and becoming part of the Rossmoor family.

But onto the point of this post (before I get too nostalgic): Breakfast Bread. Breakfast Bread was a recipe unique to Rossmoor Pastries and one of the few things that was healthy. Now when I say healthy I’m not talking about convincing yourself that a slice of carrot cake is healthy, I mean it is full of fiber and protein healthy.

The owners of Rossmoor Pastries are both very active and health conscious. We went on walks up Signal Hill’s hill, kick boxed in a park and generally had a very good time. Both owners love to bike and Charlie was featured in Bicycling Magazine back in 2009. This recipe comes from that magazine article, and I can tell you that it is very similar to the original. But if you happen to be in the Long Beach area, I highly recommend stopping by Rossmoor Pastries for a quick treat, and this breakfast bread. And maybe you can say ‘hi’ to my bakery family for me.

German Breakfast Bread
As adapted from Bicycling Magazine July 2009
The original recipe calls for spelt granola – I could not find spelt granola. So I used whole spelt kernels, which don’t really soften in the bread. I would suggest grinding the spelt kernels up a bit with a mortar and pestle or in a food processor. To serve this, slice it thin (it is dense and heavy), toast, and spread with cream cheese or a nut butter for a filling breakfast. Or spread with butter or nutella for a snack you can still feel good about.

1 c warm water (100°-110°F)
2 Tb honey
2 Tb olive oil
1 package dry yeast
2 c spelt flour, divided
¾ c white whole wheat flour, divided
1 ½ tsp salt
½ c spelt kernels, crushed
½ c raisins

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine water, honey, oil and yeast. Mix gently until the yeast dissolves, about 1 minute. Then add in 1 cup of the spelt flour, ½ c of the whole wheat flour, and the salt, mix for 3-4 minutes. It will be a very soft mixture. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let rise in a warm draft free place for about 30 minutes, or until it has doubled in size.

Next, with a dough hook, add in the remaining flours and spelt kernels, mix until thoroughly combined and the dough is smooth and elastic, adding more whole wheat flour as necessary. At the very end of mixing, toss in the raisins and mix to combine. (If you do not have an electric mixer with a dough hook, this can be done by hand on a floured board.)

Form dough into a loaf-shape and place in a loaf pan. Cover again with the damp kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 350°.

Bake the bread until golden brown, 30-40 minutes.

Makes 1 loaf.

Step 4 - Have Heart Attack

Don’t worry I am not actually going to instruct or even encourage you to have a heart attack. It’s just a warning that this indulgent recipe should not necessarily be had every weekend. And the title of this post may clue you in to the fact that we are talking bacon here. I know I have a couple of other recipes that call for cooking bacon, and then cooking onions in the remaining fat – but this one is a little different.

Bacon was a special treat in my house growing up. We might have BLT’s for lunch, and maybe only rarely did we have bacon for a Saturday morning breakfast. Now of course, living with Joe, breakfast meats are a staple on weekends. And if I do not have a breakfast meat available, we trek to a local diner to be sure and fill our quota for the week.

But when I have overnight guests, I do like to wow them with breakfast. And let me tell you, breakfast is not my strong suit. I fill the house with smoke (it doesn’t help that we don’t have an exhaust fan over the stove), I make misshapen and overly brown pancakes and French toast, I get frustrated and give up crying at poached eggs. But all this doesn’t mean that I don’t try.

Thankfully, when some friends from home came to visit last year around Easter, I managed to pull off a pretty decent breakfast. It was so impressive in fact that I actually had a request for the recipe I am about to share. First, however, let me give you a little background.

I used to work at a bar and carry-out restaurant in Washington DC. The carry-out was open for breakfast each morning, and I could entice Joe to drive me to work with the promise of some of Big Daddy’s pancakes. Big Daddy was the grill cook for the breakfast and lunch shifts 6 days a week. I’m not kidding, his name was Big Daddy. Well, not really, but that is how he introduced himself to me when I first started and that is what everyone always called him. Big Daddy’s pancakes were some of the greatest pancakes ever made. When I asked Big Daddy one day what his secret was, he only shared with me a little bit of his magic – bacon. The key he said was to cook the pancakes in the same spot that he cooked bacon on the flat-top gill. It helped that we went through tons of bacon, so there was always plenty to cook the pancakes with.

So on that morning last year, I took out my griddle pan, and laid some bacon down. Once they were finished I cooked some pancakes in the remaining bacon grease and then when the griddle was looking a bit dry, added more bacon and repeated to process. Some of my friends who claim to not really like pancakes went a little crazy for them (as I said, I got a request for this recipe). I was joking that the recipe would be: Step 1 - Cook Bacon, Step 2 – Cook Pancakes in Bacon grease, Step 3 – Have friends ooh and ahh over pancakes. And then a friend commented; Step 4 – Have heart attack. So there we have it, step-4 have heart attack.

But I won’t let you go away with just those steps, I’ll share with you my pancake recipe. This is the one I have been using for years now, and I seem to mess this one up less than any other versions I have tried. Although if you have a favorite pancake recipe, I highly recommend cooking them in bacon fat.

Cheater Buttermilk Pancakes
I never have buttermilk on hand, and if I do buy it, I can never seem to use it all before it spoils. So I cheat and make my own by adding lemon juice to whole milk or half and half. You can do it to skim milk, but it’s not creamy in the end, and don’t use only heavy cream because your end result will be too stiff.

1 c. cheater buttermilk (1 c whole milk or half and half with 1 Tb of lemon juice)
1 Tb vegetable oil
1 egg
1 c. all-purpose flour (I use white whole wheat, and again you might have to add a little more liquid because the whole wheat flour tends to make the batter thicker)
2 Tb sugar
2 Tb baking powder
1 tsp salt

To make the buttermilk, combine lemon juice and milk and let rest for 15 minutes. (I usually begin cooking the bacon, and get everything else ready during the curdling process.) Don’t stir it, just add your lemon juice and let it sit.

Combine all of the dry ingredients for the pancakes together, and after your milk has curdled, combine it to the beaten egg and vegetable oil. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet, stirring until just combined.

Cook the bacon on the same pan that you will cook your pancakes, a flat large griddle works well for this. Start with a few pieces of bacon spread out on the pan, as they cook and shrink you can begin to pour the pancake batter on the pan. Be sure to adjust the temperature of the burner to combat any burnt or smoking bits.

After a few pancakes, the pan will be dry of bacon grease so you can either cook bacon and pancakes simultaneously at this point, or alternate bacon and pancakes in the pan. I like the simultaneous method if you are cooking for a slow to awaken crowd – this way everyone can have warm, fresh from the griddle, bacon and pancakes.

If you need to keep the pancakes or bacon warm, place them on an oven-proof platter and keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

Or to summarize:
Step 1 – Cook Bacon
Step 2 – Cook pancakes in bacon grease
Step 3 – Have friends oooh and ahhh over pancakes cooked in bacon
Step 4 – Have heart attack