TWD: Baking Powder Biskuits

I don't care for the exact biscuit recipe, I love them all.
Being not american, biscuits, english muffins, scones and thelike are unfamiliar to me. But since baking for almost 5 years with the group, I got to know these breakfast treats very well. I can't really name a favourite recipes. I guess, my perfect biscuit recipe is quick, has not too many ingredients (so I ca decide to do them spontaneously) and lets options for variations of any style.

The Baking Powder Biscuits fullfill all these criteria. They are very simple in the making. The taste is a bit flat - but in a good way so you can make it as the recipe says (my option this time) or include anything you can imagine. And they are so quick in the making (just the usual biscuit steps: flour/salt/baking powder mix - butter crumbled in - some kind of dairy; no electronics needed) so you can do them before breakfast without standing up two hours earlier. Usually I would include some herbs as ramson/bears'garlic when it is in season. This time the only touch I gave the recipe was to use seasoned salt (herbs de provence) and that was just fine.

Baking time was just slightly longer and I had to add some more flour in the end. As I (still) have no biscuit cutter and my biscuit doughs are always very soft, I made them in brioche molds as usual. So, they might not exactly look like what you expect them to look like, but I am very fine with that :-)

For the recipe head over to pp. 211-212 in the book by Dorie Greenspan. And don't forget to pass by the groups link page and see what all the other perfect bakers made out of this recipe! 

TWD: Basic Biscuits

Biscuits, biscuits, biscuits!
I love doing biscuits, I love eating biscuits  - I love biscuits!
Therefore, I am always happy if someone chooses a biscuit recipe for the weekly TWD rotation. As did Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort this time. Go to her page to find the recipe for Basic Biscuits, or have a look into Dorie's book on page 21.

This recipe truely deserve it's name. It is very basic and not too hard to handle. Because I live in Europe and have no biscuit cutter, my biscuits are usually, well - lets call them "creatively shaped". Maybe the only thing not really classic about these biscuits. They do not raise a lot, so I got slightly flat biscuits. But I don't mind at all!

I sprinkled some of them with slivered almonds, and think they did match very well. But in the end, the recipe does not need any dressing up, as the biscuits are perfect just the way they are!

TWD: Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

Hmmm, biscuits! I adore biscuits! And I very much like corn-meal, or polenta, what I used instead. Let's make it short and simple, just as these biscuits: They are adorable! The maple syrup gives them a very special touch, and with the polenta they get a bit crunchy, but not too much.

They come together in a snap, it's almost impossible to make something wrong, and they don't have a long baking time. Even though I made them in the evening (lack of time on the last week-end...), I am sure they are perfectperfectperfect for breakfast due to the fastness and simpleness of this recipe.

This was really the right recipe on the right time. I spent my week-end (my usual baking time) in Dortmund in Germany, because even though I am Austrian, my favourite soccer team is a german one. They won the championship this week-end (well, in fact they already "won" it two weeks ago, but on Saturday was the last game and the big party), so I HAD to travel to Dortmund. Luckily, I won tickets (teh stadium has 86.000 seats, but only about 20.000 "free" seats because all the others are reserved for abos and regular visitors - so 400.000 people asking for tickets participated in a lottery for the available seats. Lucky me, I got two for me and a friend...)

Well, nobody who is going to read this knows about european soccer, so - let's not bore you any further. Just so much: Thanks a lot to Lindsay from A Little Something… Sweet for chosing these simple and easy to make Maple Cornmeal Biscuits - I would not have found the time for anything more time-consuming! Go to her page for the recipe or have a look at Dorie's book on page 24.

TWD rewind: Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

So it is Tuesday, and what you see here is... not a regular TWD blog entry. I was really prepared to do the Tourtely Apple Tart, chosen by Jeanette of The Whimsical Cupcake. You can find the recipe on her page or on pages 306 and 307 in Dorie's book.
I buyed the apples, and had everything else already at home. I was really looking forward to it.

But.

It is still Lenten Season. One more week to go without sugar, alcohol or meat. I already had to skip the Coffee Icecream Tart and the Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp this month, which I both regret a lot. I thought I could handle baking an apple tart without tasting. But in the very last minute it was evident for me: No way. I won't resist. I just can't bake something without tasting the result and the dough in the making. I am sorry.
But I will catch up with as much as possible. That's how it did work last year, and that's what I am going to do this year. I don't want to break my Lenten promise. Not one week before it is over anyway.

So, this week again I had to choose another recipe, one that is do-able without sugar. Mostly this is true for some muffins, some scones and almost all biscuits. I already had a look at this recipe very often because I like nuts, I love sour cream and I adore biscuits.
For the nuts I toasted a nut mix. An in half the batch I folded in some fresh chopped bear's garlic (like last year, I have no idea if this word really exists; LEO says so. But it could be that the real name for it is ramsons or wild garlic. Smells lice garlic, tastes a bit similar but less strong, and is biological no garlic)

The Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits were originally due  long, long time agoe on February 26, 2008. You can find the recipe in Dorie's book on  page 25.

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

During Lenten Season I became almost an expert for baking scones and biscuits, as they can mostly be made without sugar. So when I read that Melissa of Love At First Bite chose Sweet Cream Biscuits (p. 23 in Dories book) for this weeks TWD-session, I was excited  on the one side ("Juhu, something I CAN do! Something I am not a complete novice about!"), but a bit dissappointed on the other side ("Oh no, not biscuits - again. I made soooo many of them the weeks between Mardi Gras and Easter").
After considering all the ups and downs I decided that in the end I do love baking savory things, I do love eating biscuits, and I enjoyed the routine I was going through during Lenten Season (waking up, jogging for 50-60 mins, bathroom, baking, having a big, big breakfast/brunch with fresh baked quick breads). So - hooray for this pick!!

The category "quick breads" is more than appropriate. Because you use heavy cream instead of butter, you don't even have to think about cutting and freezing the fat (what I usually would do for about half an hour to make sure the butter is really, really cold). Just mix the few ingredienst, and you are ready to go!

As I made so many breakfast treats recently, I was in the mood for playing around. I have a lot of ramson because it is the season for it and whole Vienna (or at least its parks and gardens) smells for it. And the restaurants will use it in the weeks to come in so many variants, that in the end, no matter how much you like it, we will all be completely fed up with it and glad the season is over, so we get a whole year to recover. For sure, before next February ends, most Viennese will crave for their ramson risotto, ramson sauces of all kinds, ramson patties ...
I really love it, and as I am allergic to garlic, this is a perfect substitute. (For the allergy: Very long, very sad story... I used to like garlic a lot and didn't find out until some years ago. Well, let's face it, there are worse allergies than this. It's in my own hands to avoid it. But I very often forget to ask in restaurants, and sometimes don't recognize it, when it is not too dominant. And then the rest of the day/evening is to be forgotten, and it's best to go home....)
(Btw.: Is ramson really the right word? It is a herb that smells like garlic, but is botanically something completely different. I also found the translation "bears garlic" or "wild garlic", what might be wrong because what I am talking about has nothing do to with garlic?)

Since I made my first biscuits I found out what biscuit cutters are, but as they are not to be found round here, I just used high cookie cutters shaped like stars.
Additionally to some finely chopped ramson I mixed in a tiny little bit of Parmesan. I have no idea how much I used, I just went with my intuition.

For the ramson - I am a big fan! The parmesan would maybe not have been necessary, but after all I didn't really taste it anyways.
The ramson makes the biscuits look very pretty on the plate (on the pictures below you can indeed only see the little test piece with ramson and one of the plain Sweet Cream Biscuits), and the taste is wonderful.

Sure, this only works if you don't eat your biscuits with jam or other sweet spreads :o]

 

(Breakfast as I like it most - mixed vegetable salad, ham, some excellent cheese (buffalo brie), the newspaper - and homemade, still slightly warm biscuits)

TWD rewind: Sweet Potato Biscuits

Week 2 of the Lenten project completed, three more to go. (I skipped the first week after Mardi Gras because I was on holiday, and renouncing sweets, alcohol and meat in my holdidays is just not on the menu). Two more weeks without the actual TWD-recipe rotation...

The Sweet Potato Biscuits were originally due on October 20 and chosen by Erin of Prudence Pennywise. The recipe (and a wonderful picture-guidance) may be found on her page, or in the book.

I had an enormous sweet potato in my "bio-basket" that is delivered directly to the doorsill of  my appartment every week. So, what would have been more obvious than trying out this recipe, that has been on the schedule just a few days before I started with TWD? Therefore, I used freshly made purree instead of the canned sweet potatos. The introduction-paragraph for the recipe advises to use 3/4 to 1 cup of fresh purree, and I used the higher limit, which is, I think, just perfect. I left out the sugar, and I don't think it would have been necessary.
For the rest, I followed the recipe as it was written (including the nutmeg- but not the cinnamon-option, and, as always, using spelt flour).

They turned out really, really good. This is the second week I bake before I have breakfast, so I can already enjoy a test-piece with my Sunday-breakfast/brunch. Well, or two test-pieces. Or...
I could get used to this procedure :o]
Additonally, these come together so quick, that even me, I don't spend too much time on it.

I have no biscuit cutter (actually, I do not even know what a biscuit cutter is. Possibly it is not much different to a cookie cutter?), so I used silicone molds, 6 for making brioches (but I use them also for muffins) and 6 round ones that are shaped like flowers on the edge and on the bottom. While they were baking (I often need a bit less baking-time then stated in the recipe; here, my baking-time was more like 10-12 mins.), I had just enough time to prepare the rest of my Sunday-breakfast.

Just wonder-ful, really! I don't think that you should use any spread for them, they are just perfect for themselves. They get a pretty slightly orange colour, and they are very airy. It happened that I didn't mash the potatos completely, so a few very small pieces made it into the biscuits, but I found that to be a very marvellous touch.

Liked to make it, liked to eat it - liked it!

(in the right picture you can see the "flower-print" of half of the biscuits, and also a little sweet-potato-piece peeking on the outside)