Biscuits Archives

This started out as a post about biscuits. Specifically, the amazing biscuits from Biscuit Love, the beloved Nashville brunch hot spot. I had breakfast there last year. Their lofty flaky biscuits, slathered with butter and sorghum syrup were one of the highlights of my visit. Biscuits were added to my must blog about list.

I found their recipe online and read through it very carefully. It’s an unconventional recipe as it uses yeast as a leavening agent. Most traditional Southern biscuits rely on baking soda and/or baking powder. The other unusual ingredient was melted butter. Every other biscuit recipe I have read uses very cold, sometimes frozen butter. The theory behind cold butter is that, when the biscuits hit the oven, the butter begins to melt, causing steam, which contributes to flakiness. This recipe ran contrary to everything I knew about biscuit baking.

I took a leap of faith, mixed up the dough and baked a batch. I split a warm one open, buttered it and took a bite. It was good, but nowhere near as flaky and delicious as I remembered. These were not the biscuits of my dreams. Clearly some more research is needed here before I pass the knowledge onto you.

I decided to turn these passable biscuits into something really special. I created the E.A.T. breakfast sandwich featuring Egg, Avocado and Tomato. I had some halloumi cheese in the fridge and fried some of that up as well, for a salty, cheesy layer.

I sliced up some pretty heirloom tomatoes, salted them well and drizzled them with olive oil. I decided to mash up the avocados to give the sandwich a creamy base. A bit of lime juice, olive oil, salt and some red pepper flakes were added to the mash. Fried halloumi cheese and some fried eggs added the final two layers.

I took an adequate biscuit and turned it into a spectacular breakfast.

I did a bit of research and discovered that Biscuit Love makes 3 kinds of biscuits. The yeast raised ones that I made (also known as Angel biscuits) are what they use for their biscuit sandwiches. They also make a beaten biscuit, which are tiny and firmer, more like soda crackers. And finally, they make a traditional drop biscuit, which is what I must have been served with butter and sorghum syrup. Those were the lofty flaky biscuits of my dreams. The quest is on to reproduce these biscuits. I’ll be back with something soon, I promise.

In the meantime, feel free to use store bought biscuits, english muffins or even some great bagels for this sandwich.

Click here to print recipe for E.A.T. Breakfast Sandwiches.

Baskets of local strawberries are overflowing at Farmers Markets all over Ontario this month. I usually exercise no restraint and buy way more than we can possibly eat. Then, I’m left with a fridge full of almost rotting fruit. I blame my mother for this. I grew up in a house where we had a storage room filled with bulging shelves because she never want to run out of anything. We had enough extra toilet paper, KD and canned white tuna (packed in water) to survive for a year without ever having to leave the house.
But this week, I showed great self-control and deliberately bought just one quart, exactly what we need for our morning yogurt, berries and double coconut granola. However, my son’s room-mate Polly arrived for dinner on Friday night, with a 3-quart basket of plump local strawberries. So sweet! We ate strawberries with every meal that weekend, but still had a quart of soft berries left over on Sunday night.

I was about to freeze the extra berries when my husband asked, “why don’t you just bake me a fruit crisp instead?” Why not indeed? Since I have already blogged about my favourite crisp recipe, I wanted to try something new. Maybe a crumble, a pan-dowdy, a grunt, a slump, a buckle, a Betty, a sonker or a cobbler.

I decided to turn them into a cobbler. I had never made one before and it couldn’t be easier. While a crisp involves stopping of flour, butter, sugar, oats and sometimes nuts, a cobbler is basically a biscuit dough that gets dropped into clumps on top of the fruit and is then baked. Large cobblestone-like nuggets of crunchy dough to soak up all that warm sweet juicy fruit. Are you with me?

I decided on a mix of strawberries and raspberries. Mix the fruit with just a bit of sugar and some thickener. I like Minit Tapioca better than flour or cornstarch. Let the berries, sugar and tapioca sit for about 15 minutes so that the tapioca can dissolve. The fruit gets a head start in the oven while you prepare the biscuit dough. The original recipe calls for buttermilk, but I never have buttermilk when I need it. I just mixed some milk with a bit of lemon juice to sour it and made my own buttermilk. Flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, melted butter and buttermilk are quickly mixed together for form a dough. The cornmeal adds a satisfying little crunch to the dough.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces and drop the clumps onto the hot cobbler. Top with cinnamon sugar and bake for another 20 minutes.
Show some restraint and wait about 20 minutes before you dig in.No one will complain if you add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some softly whipped cream on the side. Any leftover keeps very well for a second day. Keep cobbler uncovered on the counter so the biscuits stay crunchy. You can warm it up in a 350°F oven for a few minutes if you like.

Salt and Serenity

Tales from my kitchen

Tag Archives: Biscuits

E.A.T. Breakfast Sandwiches

Click here to print recipe for E.A.T. Breakfast Sandwiches.

Strawberry Raspberry Cobbler

Click here to print recipe for Strawberry Raspberry Cobbler.