Month: April 2014 (page 1 of 2)

Nothing better than fresh biscuits and strawberry jam for breakfast! I made the lovely Carrie of Callie’s Biscuits, Buttermilk Biscuit recipe! The only thing that would have made them better would have been to enjoy them with a glass of iced tea on my own Charleston porch.

Happiness is…

I’ve included Carrie’s biscuit recipe below:

Callie’s Classic Buttermilk Biscuits

This is the recipe that started it all. Sitting in my mother’s kitchen and watching her prepare the pans of these highly sought-after, melt-in-your mouth bites of goodness for her catering business gave me the lightning bolt of inspiration for Callie’s Charleston Biscuits. It took some convincing to persuade my mother that a biscuit business was a good idea. She was under the impression that people still made their own biscuits! Once I convinced her that the art of biscuit making was far from a daily ritual for most, she warmed to the idea. I don’t think she ever dreamed that in a few short years, we’d be making 110,000 biscuits a month and I’d be featured on The Martha Stewart Show.

The beauty of this recipe is that biscuit making can be part of your family tradition. Just save it for a day when a little bit of a mess in the kitchen won’t derail the rest of your plans, because this dough is wet and sticky. If the dough gobs between your fingers with the consistency of pluff mud (what we in the South call marsh mud), don’t worry! That’s a good sign! Getting my hands dirty is part of the fun for me, but if you are a little more averse to gooey hands, you can certainly use a rubber spatula to mix the dough.

Makes about 10 (2-inch) biscuits

• 2 cups self-rising flour (White Lily preferred), plus more for dusting
• 5 tablespoons butter: 4 tablespoons cut in small cubes, at room temperature, and 1 tablespoon melted
• ¼ cup cream cheese, at room temperature
• ¾ cup whole buttermilk (may substitute low-fat buttermilk)

1.      Preheat the oven to 500°F. Make sure the oven rack is in the middle position.
2.      Measure the flour into a large bowl. Incorporate the cubed butter, then the cream cheese into the flour, using your fingers to “cut in” the butter and cheese until the mixture resembles cottage cheese. It will be chunky with some loose flour.
3.      Make a well in the center. Pour in the buttermilk and, using your hands or a small rubber spatula, mix the flour into the buttermilk. The dough will be wet and messy.
4.      Sprinkle flour on top of the dough. Run a rubber spatula around the inside of the bowl, creating a separation between the dough and the bowl. Sprinkle a bit more flour in this crease.
5.      Flour a work surface or flexible baking mat very well. With force, dump the dough from the bowl onto the surface. Flour the top of the dough and the rolling pin. Roll out the dough to ½-inch thickness into an oval shape. (No kneading is necessary—the less you mess with the dough, the better.)
6.      Flour a 2-inch round metal biscuit cutter or biscuit glass. Start from the edge of the rolled-out dough and cut straight through the dough with the cutter, trying to maximize the number of biscuits cut from this first roll out. Roll out the excess dough after the biscuits are cut and cut more biscuits. As long as the dough stays wet inside, you can use as much flour on the outside as you need to handle the dough. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet with sides lined with parchment paper, or in a cast-iron skillet, or a baking pan with the biscuit sides touching. (It does not matter what size pan or skillet you use as long as the pan has a lip or sides and the biscuits are touching. If you are using a cast iron skillet, no parchment paper is necessary.) Brush the tops with the melted butter.
7.      Place the pan in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 450°F. Bake 16 to18 minutes, until light brown on top (or as dark as you prefer), rotating the pan once while baking.

Note: You can freeze any leftover biscuits. To reheat, do not defrost. Wrap the biscuits in foil. Bake in a 400°F oven 25 to 30 minutes. Open the top of the foil for the last 3 to 5 minutes to brown a little on top.

{Please Note:  The recipe listed above is copyright to Callie’s Biscuits. I have eaten her biscuits at a number of events I have attended when at home in the South and was enraptured with their heavenly flavour and as any good Southerner knows, biscuits are a hot topic (no pun intended!), everyone has their favorite recipe and some are a closely guarded secret. I have a few favorites of my own and this is definitely in my list! This recipe was originally posted on the Design Sponge Blog}