Basic Drop Biscuits

Drop biscuits are some of the easiest biscuits to make because you don’t have to roll them out or cut them with a biscuit cutter which makes for less equipment to use and less handling. Remember, the more you handle your dough, the tougher your biscuits turn out so you want to handle your dough as little as possible. These biscuits are Old Goat Honey’s favorite because he loves how they’re all crispy on the outside but chewy inside. I love making ham and cheddar drop biscuits, like the ones I have pictured, and serving them with eggs and coffee for breakfast.

BASIC DROP BISCUITS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup cold buttermilk (can substitute milk)
• 2 Tbsp. melted butter, for brushing on top (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, melt 1/2 cup butter in the microwave and let cool about 5 minutes.
4. Pour melted butter and buttermilk into flour mixture and stir just till mixture comes together. You’ll have a soft, sticky dough.
5. Drop about 1/3 cup of batter onto prepared baking sheet, about 1½ inches apart.
6. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until tops are golden brown and crisp.
7. Take biscuits out of oven and immediately brush tops with 2 tablespoons melted butter, if desired.

VARIATIONS:  You can add things to the dry ingredients like ½ cup shredded cheese, or ½ cup chopped ham, or ½ cup crumbled bacon, or ¼ cup minced herbs, etc., alone or in combination with each other, before combining with the wet ingredients. You may have to increase the buttermilk to moisten the dough some more if you add other ingredients.

NOTE:  For the biscuits pictured, I added ½ cup shredded cheddar, ½ cup minced ham, 2 chopped green onion stalks, and about another ½ cup buttermilk.

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Halfway There Monkey Bread

The first time I ever heard of monkey bread was from one of our tenants. We had rented out our condo to a couple with a young son. Their first year, I stopped by to drop off a Christmas present for them and commented on how good the place smelled. She told me she had baked some monkey bread earlier. I’d never heard of monkey bread and asked her what it was and she explained to me how she made it using refrigerated biscuit dough.

It sounded so simple and I knew I had biscuit dough in the fridge back at home so I decided to try making monkey bread the way I thought she had explained it to me. The kids loved it! So I made it for them that way every time.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I learned I had evidently remembered only the first half of what she told me! Hence the name “Halfway There Monkey Bread.” Apparently, you were supposed to coat the raw dough with cinnamon sugar, put it in a bundt pan, make a sort of sauce that you poured over it, and then bake it. Sheesh! My take-away from her explanation was totally off. Someday, I’ll post a recipe for “real” monkey bread here. For now, this recipe is so good and the kids still love it so much that I continue to make it for them this way. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

HALFWAY THERE MONKEY BREAD

• 1 can (8 biscuits) refrigerated biscuit dough
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Place butter in a rectangular baking pan and put it in the oven to melt the butter. Remove it when the butter is melted.
3. Tear each biscuit into quarters and roll each quarter into a ball.
4. Drop each ball in the melted butter and roll it around so it’s completely coated.
5. Bake the buttered biscuit balls for 12-15 minutes.
6. While biscuit balls are baking, place sugar and cinnamon in an extra-large plastic tub with a lid or in a gallon-size ziploc bag and shake to combine well.
7. When biscuits balls are done, transfer them into the tub with the cinnamon-sugar.
8. Close lid tightly and shake with all you’ve got till each ball is coated with cinnamon-sugar.
9. Pour into a serving bowl and serve warm with a glass of cold milk. Yum!

Basic Biscuits

Biscuits are an all American classic. They’re perfect for breakfast with bacon and eggs, or turned into sausage and cheese breakfast sandwiches. And who doesn’t love biscuits and gravy, strawberry shortcake, or peach cobbler? Biscuits also go great with a bowl of hot soup. They’re wonderful piled warm into a basket and served with butter and honey. And let’s not forget they’re the quintessential ingredient in monkey bread. However you like to eat biscuits, this recipe is tasty and really easy to prepare. The secret is to handle your dough as little as possible. The more you handle your dough, the tougher your biscuits turn out. Biscuits are best served warm from the oven the same day they’re made, but these ones will keep in an airtight container for up to two days or in the refrigerator for up to one week.

For soft sides like these, bake biscuits in the pan with their sides touching each other.

BASIC BISCUITS
(Makes 6-8 biscuits)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. sugar
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup cold butter, cut in pieces (can substitute margarine or shortening)
• ¾ cup milk or buttermilk (you might need a little extra)
• extra flour for kneading
• 2 Tbsp. melted butter, for brushing on top (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease bottom of cast iron skillet or baking sheet.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
3. Using 2 knives or a pastry blender, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles fine crumbs.
4. Stir in milk just till mixture comes together. You’ll have a soft, sticky dough.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured work surface, sprinkle a little more flour on top, and pat it with your hands into a rough rectangular shape.
6. Knead dough by folding it in half towards you and lightly pressing it together.
7. Turn the dough a quarter turn and fold it in half towards you again, lightly pressing together.
8. Repeat till you’ve done this 4 or 5 times. Don’t over knead your dough!
9. Pat dough to desired thickness (I like about an inch thick).
10. Cut with a sharp biscuit cutter dipped in flour using a straight down and up motion. Don’t twist the cutter or your biscuits won’t rise properly. Dip the cutter in flour between each cut.
11. Arrange biscuits in pan. If you want crusty sides, place them an inch apart. If you want soft sides, place them in the pan touching each other.
12. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
13. Take biscuits out of oven and immediately brush tops with melted butter, if desired.

NOTE:  To make make biscuits using a food processor, place dry ingredients in work bowl and pulse a few times to combine. Pulse cold butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour in milk or buttermilk and pulse until just combined. Then continue with Step 5.

TO MAKE HERB BISCUITS:  Add ¼ cup dried herbs, such as basil, oregano, thyme, savory, parsley, etc., to the dry ingredients. You can use a single herb or a combination of 2 or more herbs.

7-Up Biscuits

I got this recipe from one of the girls at work. She said her mom makes it for them all the time. I’d never heard of biscuit dough made with 7-Up so I was really curious to try this. The biscuits turned out pretty good. The recipe makes a super sticky dough but if you sprinkle your work surface generously with extra bisquick before turning the dough out, and then sprinkle the top of the dough with more bisquick before patting it flat, it really helps a lot. You could substitute flour for sprinkling if you like.

7-UP BISCUITS

• 4 cups bisquick baking mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup 7-up
• ½ cup butter

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF.
2. Place butter in a 9×13″ pyrex baking dish and put into oven to melt the butter.
3. Remove baking dish from oven once butter is melted.
4. Mix bisquick, sour cream and 7-Up together in a bowl. The dough will be very soft and sticky.
5. Sprinkle extra bisquick onto work surface and turn dough out.
6. Sprinkle a little more bisquick on top of dough.
7. With your hands, gently pat the dough to about 1-inch thick or so. These biscuits don’t rise very much so you want to have your dough be fairly thick.
8. Cut out 12 circles using a biscuit cutter or an overturned glass.
9. Arrange biscuits on top of melted butter in baking dish. A bench scraper or spatula helps to transfer the soft dough from the work surface to the baking dish.
10. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.

Note:   I like to cut 2½-inch diameter biscuits which fill up my baking pan nicely, but you can certainly cut them larger or smaller. It’s up to you to decide what size you want your biscuits.

Ham and Cheddar Biscuits

Fall is definitely here! I can’t believe how quickly our triple-digit weather has turned nippy and cold. The leaves on some of the trees are already starting to turn into glorious shades of gold and copper. It’s great weather for snuggling in front of a cozy fire with a bowl of hot soup and a little basket of warm, cheesy biscuits.

These biscuits are the easiest thing to make because you start with a baking mix and just add three other ingredients. They make a great little accompaniment to a hearty bowl of soup for dinner; but I’ve also served them with eggs for breakfast. If you buy the little packages of already diced ham, and pre-bagged shredded cheddar cheese, they couldn’t be any simpler to throw together. The secret is not to overmix the dough or the biscuits will come out tough. Also, when I move them to the baking sheet after cutting them out, I place them with their sides touching each other. This helps them to rise up higher which makes for a thick, hearty biscuit that’s chock full of ham and cheese.

HAM AND CHEDDAR BISCUITS

• 4½ cups Bisquick baking mix
• 8 oz. diced ham
• 1½ cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1½ cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 450ºF.
2. Measure baking mix into a bowl.
3. Add ham and cheese and toss together until well combined.
4. Pour in buttermilk and knead just a few times until dough comes together.
5. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.
6. Pat and shape dough into a 1-inch thick circle.
7. Cut out 12 rounds with a biscuit cutter. Make sure to cut straight up and down. Don’t twist the biscuit cutter or the biscuits won’t rise as high.
8. Place biscuits on a cookie sheet making sure they’re touching each other.
9. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
10. Serve warm from oven.

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

American biscuits are very different from English biscuits. American biscuits are more of a bread, whereas the English ones are more like a cookie. In the Southern part of the United States, biscuits are very popular and everyone has a grandma or an aunt who made “the best” biscuits ever.

Making biscuits from scratch is a dying art. The advent of refrigerated ready-made biscuit dough has made it unnecessary (though to my mind, the ready-made ones don’t taste as good as homemade). Then there are all those stories of “Great Aunt Bess” who made amazing biscuits using a certain brand of flour measured in her Grandma Nell’s teacup with the pink roses on it and mixed by hand until the dough “felt” just right. It’s enough to make even just the prospect seem dauntingly intimidating.

But honestly, it’s not that hard. The secret is to handle the dough as little as possible. A food processor makes quick work of this. I’ve given instructions below for making these biscuits using a food processor but remember, you could totally make them by hand, too. Just work quickly, squeezing the dough between your fingers. And don’t worry. If worse comes to worst, you could always use them as hockey pucks!. SOUTHERN BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

• 2 cups self-rising flour (White Lily is a favorite brand down South)
• 1/3 cup Crisco shortening
• 1/4 tsp. salt (real Southern biscuits have a faintly salty taste)
• about 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 stick butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 425º.
2. Grease a baking sheet with Pam (butter-flavored is good).
3. In a food processor, pulse the flour, Crisco and salt together.
4. Pulse in the buttermilk until the dough just comes together and there is no dry flour left. You may have to add a tablespoon or 2 of buttermilk to get all the flour completely moistened.
5. Sprinkle work surface with a little flour and turn dough out onto it.
6. Lightly pat into a ball; then with a rolling pin, gently roll out to half an inch thick. Don’t worry about making the top look perfectly smooth.
7. Cut out circles with a biscuit cutter. You could also use a glass.
8. Arrange on baking sheet making sure sides of biscuits are touching each other.
9. Add scraps to empty spaces in baking sheet. Don’t gather and re-roll them because they’ll just turn out tough.
10. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
11. Remove from oven and brush tops of biscuits with melted butter, if desired.
12. Serve warm from oven.