For the past year, I have been living without cable, and for the two years before that, I was hardly home enough to watch anything at all, much less several hours of Food TV per day. Unfortunately, with unemployment comes mind numbing boredom, that I have chosen to fill with cooking shows and baking. This channel seems to have an abundance of comfort food -- Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives frequently features barbeque and Southern cooking, Paula Deen buries everything tablespoons deep in lard and butter, even "the Best Thing I Ever Ate" is constantly dripping with homestyle goodness.
In response, I've made biscuits. The kind with no shortening in them, and lots of butter. The kind that flake apart and taste delicious when smothered in, yes, I'll say it, more butter. And honey.
I'm such a Southern Belle. If by Southern Belle we mean a liberal feminist hippie who rarely shaves her legs and always votes Democrat.
I may not be the best Southern girl, but I will say these biscuits were generally a success. They were light and fluffy and flaky, with that slight crisp and crunch that gives the biscuit texture and weight. The secret in this case is the grated butter (which yes, I saw on Food Network). The reason biscuits, and pie crust for that matter, gets that amazing delicate flaky texture is that cold butter is not completely integrated into the batter, but is instead left in pieces throughout to leave pockets of airy, buttery goodness during the baking process.
(Lightly adapted from joyofbaking.com)
1/2 cup (113 grams) cold unsalted butter, frozen and grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, sift or mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add in the frozen, grated butter. To do this, I left a stick of butter in the freezer, and then ran it along my cheese grater. On top of giving you a great texture, this will be quicker than using a pastry blender or knives. Stir mixture together, taking care not to over mix. Add the milk and slightly beaten egg just to combine.
Place mixture on a lightly floured surface. Knead gently until the dough becomes smooth.
Roll or press dough until it is even throughout, and approximately half an inch thick. Cut out biscuits with slightly floured round cookie cutter. Or, if like me, you don't HAVE a cookie cutter, use a glass, or anything else you may have in your kitchen that is approximately the right size and is round. Like perhaps the lid to a small mason jar.
Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet and brush with butter. Bake for 10-15 minutes, brushing with butter again in the last few minutes of baking.
I never said this was healthy, did I?
Serve warm with butter and honey, or butter and jam. Or just butter. Again, not a healthy one, but a delicious one.
Not my finest photography, but my kitchen doesn't really get much light that time of evening, and also, sticky gooey honey deliciousness on flaky biscuits is meant to be eaten immediately. I believe I may have previously mentioned my lack of patience...
Today was an adventure day, but was also a bit of a failed adventure day. J and I recently discovered the wonder and majesty that is Ikea. This, like the Food Network, is a bit of a problem. We have come to the conclusion that all of our furniture is likely to come from there, and while we don't take issue with that, we do have to drive 45 minutes to get there, and if we're driving 45 minutes, we're not likely to walk in, get our item, and walk out. That would be cheating ourselves of the experience of it all. Well today, our beloved Ikea failed us. Our mission was to purchase the small white bookshelf that will hold all of my cherished cookbooks in order that I can have the shelf in the butcher block cart back for cooking utensils and cereal. It is beyond my imagining that Ikea could ever be out of something, in their zeppelin-sized warehouse, with shelves going up into the stratosphere, and their airplane propeller sized ceiling fans, and so we didn't think to call ahead. When we finally wandered down into the area intended for purchasing furniture, we looked up our item, walked over to row 1, bin 17, and found ourselves without the lovely, ridiculously cheap but sturdy white bookshelf that we needed.
Alas, we'll have to venture once again into the land of inexpensive-recent-college-graduate-do-it-yourself furniture. In the meantime, because it is apparently impossible to go to Ikea without buying at least something, we now have a new wine rack, and new potholders, as well as (finally) mousepads.
Tomorrow I have a second interview with the Traveling Theatre company. Think about me at 10 am.
Til next time,
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