Bacon, Brown Sugar Biscuits, Oh My!

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Ann | Leave a comment

If only for tonight, I feel like I have made it as a Biscuit Maker. Tomorrow or the next day or next week I may try another recipe, another biscuit, and be disappointed. All I know is that the Bacon Brown Sugar Biscuits I baked tonight put me into a whole new category.

Where did this biscuit recipe come from?

The recipe comes from a post by Joy the Baker. She has many other great biscuit recipes that I can’t wait to try!

Sorry – no orderly arrangement of ingredients here. This is how I bake.

Why choose this biscuit recipe?

Um. Bacon and brown sugar. I was ready for a biscuit that would knock my socks off. And um, did I mention the bacon? Actually, I had seen several biscuit recipes that called for bacon, but most of them have onion in them as well. That sounds good and I’m sure I’ll try that, but the brown sugar idea is what got me. I love sweet and salty together.

What is Persnickety about this biscuit recipe?

One thing I thought interesting is that this recipe calls for an egg. Before I actually started the baking of biscuits and was still just in research mode, I put together a spreadsheet of biscuit recipe ingredients from different sources. Yes, I am that person. I only found one that had an egg. I’m not sure what the egg does. Holds the ingredients together better? Makes them more moist? If you know, please comment and tell me!

The bacon all by itself was something special. Baked in the oven, sprinkled with brown sugar and black pepper. Oh my goodness. I may never cook bacon any other way.

What changes were made in the making of this biscuit recipe?

The only changes I made were cooking the bacon the night before and adding a sprinkle of extra pepper and sea salt on the top prior to baking. The pepper in the recipe is a really nice compliment to the sweet and salty.

Before going in the oven…

What would I do differently next time? Probably cut the bacon up into smaller pieces. That’s about it.

So how was the biscuit?

The sounds we made while eating these were almost embarrassing. They were that good. They may not be the prettiest biscuits I’ve ever made but WOW they were good. The perfect blend of sweet, salty, smokey, and peppery.

How were the leftover biscuits prepared?

We reheated them in the microwave – just wrap a damp paper towel around a biscuit and nuke it for about 10 seconds. Let it sit for about 20 seconds, then eat!

I also toasted them because I have this thing about toasted biscuits. Wonderful!

Toasted

I think they would probably also be good as a sandwich, like a BLT with the bacon already in the biscuit, but am not sure I can keep enough of them around to find out. They are that good.

New Find! Granny Hester’s Sweet Potato Biscuits

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Ann | 2 Comments

I almost missed it. I was in the frozen aisle, casually reviewing the biscuit options. There was something different – this little unassuming bag that did not seem to belong next to the flashy corporate packaging of the Pillsbury and Sister Schubert offerings. Could it be?

Ok – let me back up a little. I don’t go to just one grocery store. In fact, if I add them up, I’ve been to over 15 different grocery stores just in Nashville in the last few years. Oh my. I’ve never counted before. That is a lot of stores.

Anyway, this is partly because the little grocery store nearest where I live is tiny and crowded and has not had the best reputation. When I first moved to the east side of town nine years ago, I was afraid to go to this store after dark. Aside from the security issues, the selection was very limited and the produce unreliable. It has improved a lot over the years but is still small. So I got into the habit of trying out different grocery stores in different parts of town. I go grocery shopping on a whim, just because I happen to be out with friends or visiting my mother in a nicer part of town where there is more than one spacious, clean, and fully stocked store.

Because I really like grocery shopping! I always have. I like walking up and down the aisles looking at the incredible variety of products. I like seeing what is new and pondering the use of the more obscure items in the international sections. I mourn the loss of discontinued favorites while i rejoice in the introduction of the new.

Given all that, it should come as no surprise that every time I pass the biscuit sections of a store, whether refrigerated, fresh, or frozen, I am alert and on the lookout for something new.

Last week, after having a lovely afternoon visit with my mother, I went to Publix. I was in the frozen aisle, just casually reviewing the biscuit options. Then I saw it. This little package that was almost obscured by the Pillsbury and Sister Schubert offerings. Could it possibly be biscuits?

I opened the case and pulled out this little plastic bag with a picture of someone’s grandmother on it. Granny Hester, to be specific. There were six orange disks inside. Sweet potato biscuits! I felt like I had found a pot of gold.

I baked them over the weekend. They did not rise very much but that seemed to be due to the large proportion of sweet potatoes and relatively small amount of flour.

They were quite sweet and we definitely did not need any of the strawberry jam I had pulled out of the fridge.

They were great with chicken sausage, although a spicier sausage would have been an even better foil for the sweet.

The next day I did the Toast Test. I split the one leftover biscuit (yes, only one was left) and put a healthy dollop of butter on each side. You have to put enough butter on them – don’t skimp! Then they went into the toaster oven which was preheated to about 375 degrees. I toasted them for at least 12 minutes, maybe 15. I think that is the key to the best crispy, crunchy, toasty biscuits – cooking slowly in an oven that is not too hot.

Oh. My. Word. These biscuit halves were transformed from good biscuits into caramelized crispy shards of sweet potato perfection. They were like candy. The only problem is that there were not enough of them.

Bottom line? I really liked these. But rather than buy them again, I’m feeling inspired to make my own next time. It will be fun to see if I can meet the Granny Hester standard.

The Biscuit Bash

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Ann | 7 Comments

Can I still call it a bash if there were only three people there? I wanted to have a few friends over for an afternoon of biscuit baking. But my kitchen is not that big and so, well, it was a small bash.

Regardless, we had a blast and tried several different recipes, eating our fill and saving the leftovers for later. In preparation, I had printed out several different recipes to choose from. I supplied all of the flour, butter, buttermilk, and pans and we also had some non-biscuit snacks while we cooked. One friend brought some fresh rosemary to try as an add in. Another brought strawberries and whipping cream for strawberry shortcake.

We made:

Orange Biscuits – I don’t think I have a picture of these without a portion of one eaten. They were sticky and gooey and yummy. They were also extremely persnickety! I’m not sure that I would make these again.
Buttermilk Yogurt Biscuits – These were fabulous. They rose so high and were light and fluffy. They were the group’s favorite.
Yeast Biscuits (aka Angel Biscuits – more on these in a post to come)

We added rosemary and cheddar to the Buttermilk Yogurt Biscuits – those are the rectangular ones in the photos. This recipe was a perfect vehicle for add-ins.
Finally, we used the plain Buttermilk Yogurt Biscuits to make strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. Delightful!

There was also an experiment with Gluten Free Bisquick. I can’t really count them as biscuits. They were more like eggy corn muffins – not necessarily bad, but not a biscuit!

Clockwise: Orange Biscuits on the left, then a couple of Angel Biscuits, Gluten Free Bisquick Biscuits, and at the bottom you can see the rectangular Rosemary Cheddar Biscuits, made with the Yogurt Biscuit recipe.

Grapefruit Biscuits

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Ann | 2 Comments

Mmm… citrus, butter, sugar – a lovely combination.

Why choose this biscuit recipe?

My mother gave me a bunch of grapefruit! I remembered seeing the Grapefruit Biscuits recipe and figured it was now or never….

Where did this biscuit recipe come from?

I originally saw a recipe for Grapefruit Biscuits while browsing at The Southern Festival of books in Nashville – it was in Farm Fresh Southern Cooking. That recipe uses grapefruit juice instead of buttermilk. I love grapefruit and made a note to look them up again later. This is the recipe I found when I Googled. I went with the second one because it called for both grapefruit zest and juice. I think you need both to actually get the grapefruit flavor.

What is Persnickety about this biscuit recipe?

I do not understand all of the chemistry of cooking but believe that the grapefruit juice provides the acid normally provided by the buttermilk to interact with the baking powder, allowing the biscuits to rise.

Grapefruit Zest and Sugar

Also, while I used butter in this recipe, you could easily substitute vegetable shortening and make these vegan.

So how was the biscuit?

When I made these, I ate a biscuit straight from the oven (of course!). It was lovely. Fluffy, moist, slightly sweet. But I could not taste the grapefruit at all. I was kind of disappointed by that. The next day I toasted one and found that there was a very light citrus flavor. It was quite nice. I wonder if the flavor intensifies over time, but they did not last long enough for me to be sure!

What would you do differently next time?
More grapefruit zest! If I’m going to put grapefruit into a biscuit, I’d like to taste it.

Conecuh Sausage Biscuits at Jackson’s

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Ann | Leave a comment

Sometimes a biscuit will surprise you.

We were going to an afternoon movie at the Belcourt and stopped in Jackson’s for a quick bite to eat. I’ve eaten at Jackson’s many times over the years. I’ve had their salads, their paninis, their french toast, and their spinach-garlic dip that will blow your taste buds away. But I had never even noticed the biscuits on the brunch menu. That’s what happens when an obsession begins – you start to notice things.

So I decided to take a chance and order the Sunrise Sliders – biscuits with scrambled egg, cheese, and Conecuh smoked sausage. I’d never heard of the sausage before, but it seems to be from Alabama and is, I suppose, special enough to be called by name.

The resulting biscuit concoction was far better than I had expected. What the menu did not say is that they would be served with pepper jelly on the side. What a lovely surprise! It would have been very good without the jelly but that was the touch that set this meal apart and made it worth remembering. The pepper jelly added a little spicy sweetness that rounded out the rest of the flavors perfectly. I’ll definitely be back for more.

Pumpkin Biscuits with Maple Cinnamon Butter

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Ann | Leave a comment

Where did this biscuit recipe come from?

The recipe came from My Life as a Mrs.

Why choose this biscuit recipe?

After spending some time focused on making more “traditional” biscuits, I was ready for something different. I love pumpkin muffins so figured I would like these, too!

What is Persnickety about this biscuit recipe?

For me, it is the spices. I don’t like too much pumpkin spice mix in anything. The blend is not quite right to me, but you need enough spice to make these interesting, so I fiddled with that a bit. It was also a little tricky to get the ratio of wet to dry ingredients right.

What changes were made to this biscuit recipe?

I made these several times. The first time, I made them as written, the second time (and third and …) I made the following changes:

Used a little more flour and a little less pumpkin so that the dough was easier to work with
Added 1/4 cup of brown sugar because I wanted them to be a bit sweeter
Used 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (instead of all pumpkin pie spice) – this was perfect for me
I modified the butter recipe, too, adding cinnamon to the Maple Butter, so it became Maple Cinnamon Butter. I used salted butter because I always prefer salted butter.

So how was the biscuit?

Wonderful! They were a gorgeous orange color and very moist with just enough spicy sweet pumpkin flavor to make it interesting, while still tasting like a biscuit. They did not rise terribly high but enough.

I ate them several different ways. I did make the maple cinnamon butter, and that was a really nice sweet, salty touch. I also served them with fresh sausage from my local butcher and blackberry jelly. I made little biscuits (about 1 1/2 inches diameter) for a party and served them with an assortment of butters and jams and the option of sausage. They were a hit!

Biscuit Making Begins

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Ann | 2 Comments

Finally! All this talk of biscuits and none to be found in my own kitchen? Time to fix that. I’d been obsessively pinning biscuit recipes, scouring cookbooks, and looking through my grandmother’s old recipes and newspaper clippings, trying to find the best recipe. I had also read several posts from people who have lots of advice to give on how to make the very best biscuit. Eventually, I just had to bite the bullet and choose one.

Where did this biscuit recipe come from?

It originally came from a cookbook of recipes provided by Tupelo Honey Cafe, aka Biscuit Mecca. Here is a link to the Project Foodie post I found with the recipe.

Why choose this biscuit recipe?

Hello – Tupelo Honey! Also, there is lots of butter and buttermilk involved so it seemed like a no brainer. At the same time, I cannot believe that Tupelo Honey would share their actual biscuit recipe. I mean, isn’t the real one locked up somewhere?

What is Persnickety about this biscuit recipe?

I was most fascinated by the idea of grating frozen butter – I had never heard of doing that before. I also found the choice of bread flour intriguing. Everything I’ve read says that when baking biscuits you want to use flour that is low in protein, like White Lily. Bread flour is actually higher in protein even than all purpose flour. But did I let that stop me? Of course not.

Look at all that butter!

Was the biscuit recipe altered in any way?

The first time I made these, I stuck with the recipe. The second time, I used shortening instead of butter, which also meant that I could skip the grating part. Shortening does not get as hard as butter in the freezer so it is not necessary. It also would have been impossible!

I like to pull out all my ingredients when I bake.

So how were the biscuits?

The first time I set the biscuits several inches apart when baking. The outside was more crisp than I like. Rookie mistake. I learned that you should bake biscuits close together – actually touching – to keep them as moist on the sides the way I like them. But they still rose well and were flaky and had a good flavor.

The second time I baked them right next to each other and was happier with those results. I still found them flaky, but a little too dense. I was looking for a more moist, fluffy biscuit.

The third attempt was actually a variation on the first two. I had heard you could freeze biscuits uncooked and then just bake them directly from the freezer. It makes sense. I’ve bought commercial frozen biscuits before and that worked great. So I froze some from each batch and tried baking them later. I found that it worked ok. They did not seem to rise as much as the originals but were still pretty good. Makes me wonder, though, if the commercial biscuits have different ingredients.

Would you make them again?

Probably not. They were good but definitely not of Tupelo Honey quality. I realize that could be due to my inexperience, but need to try more recipes before I’ll know. The quest continues.

Sublime Sausage Biscuit at Barista Parlor

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Ann | Leave a comment

I believe this is where my biscuit obsession got serious. Up until then, it was more of a craving, an inside joke, a form of nostalgia.

Barista Parlor – Nashville

It was in the fall of 2012. We went to a new coffee house in East Nashville – Barista Parlor. We’d read about it on Yelp and could not believe there was a place in East Nashville that we had not tried yet.

One cool thing about Barista Parlor is how you get to pick your roast and each cup is made to order. It also has this major hipster vibe. The kind of vibe where I know I am not hip enough to be there at all – except that I am old enough to not care.

Very Hip Iron Light Fixture

They also have a very small food menu. I recall on that first visit ordering a cup of some exotic sounding coffee and then getting a sausage biscuit almost as an afterthought. The coffee was good. Very good. But the sausage biscuit?

Oh. My. God.

How could something that looks so simple be so amazing?

We discussed it obsessively the entire time we were there. How the biscuit was just the right size, the right level of flaky vs. fluffy, the perfect venue for the sausage that (we later discovered) came from Porter Road Butcher next door. The sausage was like nothing I’d had before. Perhaps it was just sage or something simple like that but it was amazing. And then to bring the whole thing together and provide a sweet balance to the salt and herb flavors, there was this dollop of strawberry preserves that proceeded to ooze out over the sides.

I have to be honest. I never would have put those things together. But that is why we go out to eat right? What would have seemed odd to me before – became the breakfast sandwich that I can only describe as sublime. My mild obsession turned into a full blown case of Biscuit Obsessed Syndrome, and also created a grave concern of mine that biscuits were being overlooked in the current culinary climate. And so . . . a blog was born.

Mystery Biscuit

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Ann | 2 Comments

I didn’t plan for it to happen. We were actually thinking of going hiking. Then there were biscuits. And the Piggly Wiggly.

Ok, wait, let me start at the beginning. We were away for the weekend in an area called the Cumberland Plateau. On Saturday we’d gone on a lovely hike to Greeter Falls, one of my favorite places. On Sunday, we figured out where the trailhead was for the waterfall that the cabin owners had said was a “must see.” It was in the town of Gruetli-Laager, TN.

Now, I used to spend a lot of time in this area of Tennessee and the only thing I knew about Gruetli-Laager is that they have a Piggly Wiggly. So as we drove and the rain started coming down, I thought to myself, “At least we can go to the Piggly Wiggly.”

I put the Piggly Wiggly into the map on my phone and watched our progress. We slowly got closer but it seemed to take longer than expected. At one point, I thought I saw a few buildings ahead and cried out, “We’re almost there!”

“Where?!” he said, excitedly.

“I don’t know, but we must be getting close to something!” And we laughed.

Anyway, hiking was definitely out of the question, but the Piggly Wiggly was open and warm and dry. We perused the shelves, marveling at the humongous (truly) cans of turnip greens and various cuts of meat we had never seen anywhere before.

Then we saw them. It was a very simple package. Easy to miss if you did not know what you were looking for. Just a stack of frozen biscuits in a plastic bag. The most basic of nutritional info and no other labeling whatsoever. No brand. Not even a distributor location. I had to get them.

The next weekend I baked some of them up. That’s how you say it, you know. “Bake them up.” Just look at how they turned out!

Those simple little disks rose into these fabulous fluffy, tasty biscuits! Amazing.

The next day, I did the toasted biscuit test. I slathered them in butter and baked them for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees. They just browned a little at the edges. I put some Maple Cinnamon Button on one of them. Ahhh. Look how yummy. I have to admit, though, that they were not as good as I had hoped when they had cooled later that day. But I have some other biscuits that are perfect as leftover, leftover toasted biscuits. But that’s a post for another day.

International Biscuit Festival – 7 Things to Know Before You Go

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Ann | 2 Comments

Thinking about going to the International Biscuit Festival in Knoxville? Whether you are local or have to travel across the country, you should find some of my notes helpful.

1. Go! Yes, it is worth the trip and there are so many delicious, creative biscuits to be devoured in a relatively short period of time. Read my previous posts of favorite biscuit, second favorites, and honorable mentions to see examples of the kinds of biscuits you might encounter.

2. Go early! Tickets for Biscuit Boulevard went on sale at 8:30 while the festival started at 9:00. We got there at 9. There were already long lines for some of the really popular booths. Although the festival officially goes to 3:00 pm, some booths were out of biscuits by 11:00.

3. Finish your coffee before you get there. You want to have your hands free because they will fill up quickly. You will be carrying around your ticket, plates with biscuits, and the bottle of water they give you when you buy the ticket. Better yet, bring a shoulder bag you can put the water into. You may have to manage a huge biscuit like this one!

4. Prepare for weather. It was raining when we left our hotel but that did not seem to diminish the crowd (I kind of hoped it might mean more biscuits for me!). See #3. Even more difficult to hold everything when you also have an umbrella.

5. Bring a friend. Eating biscuits together is a bonding experience. Also, the way it works is you purchase a ticket for $10 that allows you 5 biscuits. If you and your good friend share each of the biscuits, then you each get to try 10.

6. Stay close to Market Square if you are coming in from out of town. This area of Knoxville is lovely and everything you could want is within walking distance. Great restaurants. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza because it had a discounted rate for festival goers. Check the festival web site a few months ahead for info.

7. Don’t panic! You will get your fill of biscuits. I wish I had taken a little more time to think about which biscuits I wanted to try because I missed a few that looked really good. I was worried by the long lines at first and then realized they move quickly. We actually could not finish all the samples that we did get.

See you next year!

The Persnickety Biscuit

One Day at a Time, One Biscuit at a Time

Tag Archives: biscuits

Bacon, Brown Sugar Biscuits, Oh My!

New Find! Granny Hester’s Sweet Potato Biscuits

The Biscuit Bash

Grapefruit Biscuits

Conecuh Sausage Biscuits at Jackson’s

Pumpkin Biscuits with Maple Cinnamon Butter

Biscuit Making Begins

Sublime Sausage Biscuit at Barista Parlor

Mystery Biscuit

International Biscuit Festival – 7 Things to Know Before You Go

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