TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

Sweet Cream Biscuits are this week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie, as chosen by Melissa of Love at First Bite.

Although biscuits seem innocuous enough to make, I've often found them to be quite a challenge. It has actually taken me several years to get the hang of it. Pretty much, my problem was always, without fail, overworking and handling the dough too much. It always results in a 'hockey puck' type of biscuit that just really doesn't appeal.

Since I got my copy of Dorie's Baking book I have actually made these biscuits several times. I really love how they turn out, tender, flavorful and light with just a little sweetness. I love how easy they are with skipping out on the process of cutting the butter or some other type of fat into the flour mixture. It seemed a little sketchy at first to just mix in heavy cream, but after some thought, and the fact that heavy cream, when beat long enough turns into butter, really started to make a lot of sense.

Our favorite way to eat biscuits is just with some soft butter and homemade jam. Yum!

Check out the TWD Blogroll to see all the biscuits!

TWD: Sweet Potato Biscuits

This week's recipe pick for Tuesdays with Dorie for the Sweet Potato Biscuits comes to us from Erin of Prudence Pennywise.

These are your basic biscuit, given an extra twist from Dorie by substituting mashed, cooked sweet potato for the liquid in the recipe. I think the possibility for error on these biscuits was increased for quite a few TWDer's due to the substitution of the liquid. The recipe calls for two 15-oz cans of sweet potatoes, drained, to mash and come up with 3/4 to 1 cup of mashed sweet potato. I had one 29-oz can that drained gave me almost 2 cups of mashed sweet potato. I'm not sure if it is Dorie's intention to use the full amount from both cans or not since the 3/4 to 1 cup measurement is actually contained in the notes before the recipe. I think that either way, you would have to use the measurements as a guideline.

Either way, I think, due to weather and how you measure your flour (or over measure in a lot of cases if you are like me) you may need more of the mashed sweet potatoes to come up with an amount that will actually bring your dough together into a soft, workable, biscuit like dough without overworking it. In my case, I actually ended up using about 1 1/2 cups of the sweet potatoes to bring the dough together and it still may not have been enough since I think I overworked my dough just a bit still.

The sweet potato flavor wasn't overwhelming and it was good when at room temperature with some thinly sliced roasted pork loin. The biscuits made for nice and easy little sandwiches. For a sweet topping alternative, I think some lightly warmed dulce de leche would be delicious on these.

Perfect Buttermilk Biscuits

I have finally found and tweaked the perfect biscuit recipe!  This may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but I have been on a serious biscuit craving hunt for years!  

Read more about it here and get the recipe!

My New Favorite Thing - Taste & Create VII

I decided to RSVP for the latest round of Taste & Create again. I had such fun the last go around and this is such a fun and unique event. I am so glad that I did because my partner, Michelle, of Sugar & Spice has so many amazing posts. First off, I love, love, love her blog - the name, the layout, the recipes, everything about it is amazing. Without Taste & Create I'm still sure I would have found Michelle's blog, but I'm so glad that this event helped me find it that much sooner.

There were so many things that I wanted to make, and have bookmarked to do so, but when I was trying to figure out what to make, I kept coming back to a TWD recipe for Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits. Now, I know that this item has already been blogged by all the TWDer's back in January, but I decided to give it a go anyway. I had already decided to make a big pot of chili for dinner and I decided, since the chili I was going to make promised to be savory and rich (yes, I add a little bittersweet chocolate to it). These biscuits would be perfect with it. And, oh, I wasn't disappointed. Even with my own little mess up in the recipe (umm, 5 Tablespoons of butter, Holl, not a full stick - whoops - this blog should probably be renamed "cooking while distracted"), these biscuits were still tender, flavorful and amazing.

I think the thing I love most about these biscuits, is well, the pecans and brown sugar. No shocker there that I am a huge fan of both brown sugar and pecans. I think I have proved that already on this blog. Anyway, they were absolutely wonderful with the chili (which I will provide the recipe for as well soon) and aside from that I had a last minute idea to serve the biscuits. I usually slather mine with butter, but this time, since I still have some Dulce de Leche from the other day, I decided to put a little of that on it. All I can say is WOW. I mean, seriously, WOW. Of course, it is no shocker that this would be a natural combination, but still, the result was nothing short of delicious.

So, without further ado, here is the recipe for the biscuits. I will post that chili soon, but I will definately be making these biscuits often.

Thanks to Nicole at For the Love of Food for creating this event and to Michelle over at Sugar & Spice for her lovely blog.

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
(Source: Dorie Greenspan “Baking: From My Home to Yours” p.25)

(Makes about 12 biscuits)

2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
1/2 cup cold sour cream
1/4 cold whole milk
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted

Getting Ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch-diameter biscuit cutter and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Whisk the flour(s), baking powder, salt, and baking soda together in a bow. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between– and that’s just right.

Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. Grab a fork and gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you’ve got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle kneading– 3 or 4 turns should be just enough to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead 2 to 3 times to incorporate them.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour, pat the dough out with your hands or toll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don’t worry if the dough isn’t completely even– a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.

Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of the first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working with them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2-inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet. (The biscuits can be made to this point and frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight and kept for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting– just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)

Bake the biscuits for 14-18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.