Despite being sans traditional kitchen set up right now,
baking hasn't fallen too far to the wayside. Fingers in dough is a form of
stress relieving therapy for me. Even before we bought a little counter top
convection oven I was grilling pita bread and pizza dough as often as I could.
This weekend we took brunch to a family across the street with
a sweet little baby girl welcomed into their fold of two older sisters.
Thinking of what to feed a total of 9 mouths with my grill and counter top
convection oven proved to be a fun challenge. In the end, I settled for
homemade granola with yogurt and berries and grilled sausage patties on flaky rosemary
cheddar biscuits. Easily made, easily transportable.
The recipe is adapted from who knows where. I've kept a
3-ring binder now for 15 years of odds and end recipes with my notes in the
margins. Newspaper and magazine clippings, handwritten recipes from those
light bulb/improv-in-the-kitchen moments, recipes passed down from friends and
family…it’s a huge hodgepodge of crazy and its one of my most treasured bits of
goodness.
I have added chopped rosemary from my kitchen window herb
garden, to the recipe along with a few tweaks here and there to make these a
bit more billowy and flaky. They are super, super simple. I often mix the dry
ingredients the night before, chop my butter and keep it wrapped in the fridge
and then in the morning~ between groggy eyed sips of coffee I simply assemble,
roll out, cut and bake.
Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits ~ Yields 12-14 biscuits
4 cups AP flour (I use White Lily for biscuits)
4 Tbsp. chopped dried or fresh rosemary
4 tsp. baking powder
4 tsp. sugar
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1.5 cups cold buttermilk
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Whisk together the dry ingredients except for the chopped
rosemary. Blend in the butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until the
dry ingredients resemble clumped sand. Stir in the grated cheese and then dump
the buttermilk into the bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until incorporated and a
dough ball begins to form.
At this point, dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently a dozen times or so until it a cohesive dough ball but absolutely DO NOT over knead or else your beautiful little balls of butter will start to melt from the heat of your hands. That’s a no no.
At this point, dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently a dozen times or so until it a cohesive dough ball but absolutely DO NOT over knead or else your beautiful little balls of butter will start to melt from the heat of your hands. That’s a no no.
Pat the dough (or gently roll) until it is around 1.5” in
thickness. Cut the biscuits with a cutter (I use a square cutter from King
Arthur Flour.)
Arrange them about 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking
sheet. Bake until golden brown and the biscuits are cooked through, about 15
minutes.
Remove from the oven, split and fill with any goodies your
groggy-eyed-self desires. And don’t forget to share with the neighbors….
