by Sunny Daydreame on October 23, 2008
in Recipes
My ever growing tummy has pushed me to start cooking up a storm. I’ve been baking and freezing and generally hoarding away food so that when this little baby finally arrives I won’t have to think about cooking for a month. Today’s project has brought me to the very best homemade biscuit recipe I have ever had.
These remind me a bit of the biscuits at McDonald’s or Hardees, and I’m sure they are equally (un)healthy. With 5 T of butter and 3 T shortening what’s not to love? All I can say is that I’ve been looking for this biscuit recipe all my life.
Flaky biscuits
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 5 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter (cut into small cubes)
- 3 Tablespoons chilled shortening
- 3/4 cup milk (or buttermilk if you prefer)
Preheat oven to 450*F. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.
Cut in butter and shortening with a fork or pastry blender until the mixture looks crumbly (resembling coarse cornmeal).
Cut In Butter and shortening until it looks like coarse cornmeal
Slowly stir in milk until ingredients is just moist enough to form a dough ball (I usually pour in 1/2 c. then add the other 1/4 c. one Tablespoon at a time. This keeps the dough from becoming over-moistened).
Slowly add milk until ingredients forms dough ball
On a lightly floured surface, roll dough until 1/2-inch thick. Cut with 2-inch floured biscuit cutter. Place 1 1/2 inches apart on un-greased baking sheet.
Bake in pre-heated oven 10-12 minutes at 450° F or until tops are golden brown. (optional, brush tops with melted butter). Serve Hot!
bake until golden brown
You can also do these as brown-and-serve biscuits by baking 8-10 minutes (just before the tops start to brown), let cool and then freeze in a plastic bag. To re-heat bake at 450°F until tops are golden (I’m unsure of the amount of time).
**For the sake of full disclosure, the final picture is meat wrapped in the biscuit dough (look for this recipe coming early next week)
by Sunny Daydreame on August 27, 2008
in Recipes
I have a horrible time getting my husband to eat breakfast. If he has to sit down to eat something, he won’t eat anything at all. This bran muffin recipe came from my mom-in-law’s family, and it is my trick to get Brenton to sit down (yes, you read that right) and eat breakfast. There are some things I just can’t explain. He won’t eat breakfast if it is something he would have to sit down to eat, but if he could just grab it and go (like bran muffins) he will sit down and eat breakfast with me. I love him anyways.
As an aside note, these muffins are very high fiber and great for pregnancy. They are a kitchen staple right now.
I am not above tricks Breakfast Bran Muffins.
This recipe makes a HUGE batch that will fill a gallon ice cream pail.
2 c. 100% bran
2 c. boiling water
1/3 c. margarine
2 1/3 c sugar
4 eggs, beaten
4 c. buttermilk
5 t soda
1 t salt
5 c flour
4 c all-bran cereal
2 c raisins
Mix bran and boiling water, make sure you stir while you are adding the bran to the water other wise you will get lumps of dry bran.
In a separate bowl, cream margarine and sugar. Add eggs. Beat until fluffy. Stir in bran and buttermilk. I confess that I have substituted regular milk or sourmilk for the buttermilk.
Add dry ingredients, folding in. Add raisins. My kitchenaid mixing bowl is big enough to stir all the ingredients but the bran cereal and the rasins. At that point, I transfer the batter into what I refer to as “the world’s biggest tupperware bowl” to stir in the last two ingredients. I also use this bowl for storing the batter in the fridge
fill greased or lined muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake 20 mins at 375* F.
Will keep up to 8 weeks in fridge. The batter will get dryer and turn more brown as the bran cereal absorbs moisture and breaks down–this is normal. This is a somewhat dough-y batter (because of all the soluble fiber), if the batter gets too dry, sprinkle a bit of water (about 1 T at a time) and stir in.
I wonder how these bran muffins would taste with dried blueberries,craisins, or some other dried fruit instead.