Buttermilk Drop Biscuits

At Corrie’s birthday family get together, I made these biscuits to go along with our meal.  Since we were making other dishes, I was looking for something easier than rolling out and cutting biscuits and stumbled upon these.  While I would say I probably enjoy traditional biscuits a little more, these are a great alternative when you need something a little simpler – just mix and drop!

Buttermilk Drop Biscuits

Yields about 12 biscuits

• 2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, chilled
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted and slightly cooled

Heat oven to 475 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment or a silpat liner.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a 2-cup liquid measure, stir together the chilled buttermilk and melted butter until the butter forms small clumps. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula just until the ingredients are incorporated and the mixture slightly pulls away from the edges of the bowl.

Using a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop or a greased ¼-cup measure, scoop out biscuit dough and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 1 ½ inches apart. Bake the biscuits until the tops are golden brown and crisp, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush with additional melted butter. Serve warm.

Recipe Source: America’s Test Kitchen, found at Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

Coconut Banana Bread

When I make banana bread I always seem to have the issue that the top doesn’t cook as fast as the sides, so the last two times I’ve made it, I’ve ended up additionally using a itty bitty baby loaf pan with it, and when you remember to take it out a little earlier than you big loaf like I essentially half remembered to do here, it works out perfectly for me.  Until I find another solution, this is what my gameplan will be.

I LOVED this bread.  Corrie thought the flavor was great but didn’t love the texture of the coconut throughout (and he does like coconut), so keep that in mind if you have “coconut texture issues” of any sort.   Although I might run the coconut through a few pulses of a food processor for him next time, this recipe is getting kept for me!

Coconut Banana Bread

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (I didn’t have whole wheat so I just used an additional 1/2 c. of all-purpose)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 3 mashed ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt (I used light.)
• 3 tablespoons Kentucky Whiskey (or dark rum)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut + 1 tbsp coconut, divided
• Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and stir with a whisk.

Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add banana, yogurt, whiskey, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Stir in shredded coconut. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon coconut.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes to an 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan.

Source: Culinary Adventures of a New Wife; Adapted from Cooking Light

Monya’s Banana Bread

After Monya and Aunt Marti tried the banana bread recipe I had posted, Monya sent me her recipe of banana bread!   As Monya says, this is a slightly heavier banana bread, but still equally good.  Corrie was protecting his spot as darling grandchild when he said it tasted almost as good as Monya’s.

On a side note, as you can tell I had to make mine a few minutes longer…any helpful hints on how to get banana bread to bake evenly?  I always have trouble with the middle not cooking as quickly as the rest!  I’ve tried metal and ceramic bread dishes and altered the amount of batter.

Monya’s Banana Bread

• 1 cup mashed bananas
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup finely grated carrots
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup nuts, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the mashed bananas, sugar, oil, and eggs.  Mix for 2 minutes.

Sift together the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Fold into banana mixture.  Stir in carrots and optional nuts, if using.

Spoon into greased and floured 9 x 5 bread pan.

Bake for 55 minutes.  Cool in the pan completely and then wrap in foil.

Store overnight before slicing.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I had this weird obsession with biscuits for about two weeks.  I wanted biscuits people!! Immediately.  I talked about them all the time, and I still have no idea why.  I mean don’t get me wrong, a biscuit with a little bit of honey (that’s how my Daddy eats them, so obviously the way to go ) is quite yummy, but it’s not usually my Veruca Salt “I want it now” moment.

I *gasp* did not make my own baking powder.  I used store-bought…the horror!! Other than that  I was a little biscuit making fool.  I do think the oven was a touch hot.  I felt like they browned on the outside a little too nicely before the inside was fully cooked.   I’d like to try them at 400 degrees for a longer amount of time… Bread-type products and I still have some trust-building exercises to do.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Makes 15 (2 1/2-inch) biscuits

• 5 cups sifted White Lily flour or other unbleached all-purpose flour (measured after sifting)
• 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon homemade baking powder (recipe follows)
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup packed butter (or lard), chilled
• 1 3/4 cups chilled buttermilk, plus a few tablespoons more if needed
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Homemade baking powder

• 1/4 cup cream of tartar
• 2 tablespoons baking soda

Preheat oven to 500° F (I would use 400 degrees on my next try and bake them for 12-15 minutes).

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl, and whisk well.  Add the butter and, working quickly, coat in flour and rub between your fingertips until about half the butter is coarsely blended and the other half remains in large pieces about 1/2 inch in size.

Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk. Stir quickly, just until the dough is blended and begins to mass. The dough should be soft and a bit sticky and there should not be large amounts of unincorporated flour in the bowl. If dough is too dry, add a few tablespoons more buttermilk.

Turn dough immediately onto a generously floured surface, and with floured hands knead briskly 8 to 10 times until a cohesive dough is formed.

Gently flatten the dough with your hands so it is of an even thickness. Then, using a floured rolling pin, roll it out to a uniform thickness of 1/2 inch. (If the dough begins to stick to your rolling pin, dust the pin – not the dough – with flour. Flouring the dough at this point will result in dusty-looking biscuits.) With a dinner fork dipped in flour, pierce the dough completely through at 1/2-inch intervals.

Lightly flour a 2 1/2- or 3-inch biscuit cutter and stamp out rounds. (Do not twist the cutter when stamping out biscuits.) Cut the biscuits from the dough as close together as you can for a maximum yield. Arrange cut biscuits on a heavy, ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheet so that they almost touch. Do not reroll the scraps. Just bake the rest of the dough pieces, as is, and enjoy as a treat.

Bake in upper third of the oven for 8 to 12 minutes (if using 400 degrees – 12-15 minutes) until crusty golden brown. (Check about 6 minutes into baking and rotate pan if needed to ensure even cooking.) Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.

Homemade Baking Powder
Sift the ingredients together three times. Transfer to a clean, dry, tight-sealing jar. Store at room temperature, away from direct sunlight, for up to four weeks. Use in any recipe calling for a commercial baking powder.

Source: Scott Peacock’s Hot, Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits
From Scott Peacock’s “The Art of the Biscuit,” reprinted in “Best Food Writing 2008″; Found at Ezra Pound Cake

Addicting Pepperoni Bread

Don’t even try to act like you weren’t warned.  Growing up my two favorite pepperoni breads came from La Puma bakery and one from a local bakery that Heinen’s (ah, momentary sigh of sadness for not having have access to Heinen’s…okay…done) sold.  I love pepperoni bread, but only with cheese in it (DUH!).   So, I decided to make up my own according to my tastes.  Although I’m sure this would be even more delicious with homemade dough, we had no trouble mowing through these two loafs in an embarrassingly short amount of time.

I didn’t measure, but here are a few estimates…obviously increasing the cheese amounts will only serve to make this MORE DELICIOUS!

Pepperoni Bread

• 3 1/2 cups Mozzerella Cheese, shredded and divided
• 3/4 cup Asiago Cheese, shredded and divided
• 3/4 cup of Parmesan, grated and divided + 1/4 cup, reserved
• 8-10 oz. of Sandwich Pepperoni (I found it near the deli, so that’s what I used!)
• 2 loaves Frozen bread/pizza dough or homemade
• Olive Oil
• 1 tsp. Garlic Powder, divided
• 2 tsp. Italian Seasoning, divided

Defrost bread dough following manufacturer’s instructions.  (All cooking times and temperatures I’m going to refer to the original manufacturers’ recipes or to your bread dough recipe, because no two brands/recipes are exactly the same.)

Preheat over per bread dough manufacturer’s instructions.  Line baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Roll out dough into a large rectangle.  Then, lightly brush the dough with olive oil, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides.  Sprinkle dough with half of the garlic powder and half of the italian seasoning (or as much as you want).  Then lay the pepperoni down so that each piece slightly overlaps.  Cover evenly with mozzerella, asiago, and parmesan.  Roll up dough, and pinch the seams to seal.

Place seamside down on the baking dish, and repeat for the second loaf.  Brush the top of each loaf with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkle with reserved parmesan cheese.

Bake according to bread dough instructions until golden brown and delicious!

Sour Cream Banana Bread

This bread was DELICIOUS!  It’s definitely my go-to banana bread from now on, not to mention being a perfect way to use up leftover bananas.

Sour Cream Banana Bread

Recipe sent to me by Mommy, originally from Kraft Foods

• 1/4 cup softened butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup (about 3) mashed bananas
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup walnuts or pecans

Optional “extra”: Mix 2 Tbsp.  sugar and 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon. Dust greased pan with 1/2 of the sugar mixture. (No need to flour the greased pan.) Pour batter into pan, sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture and bake as directed.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until well blended.  Add bananas, sour cream and eggs; mix well.  Add combined dry ingredients and mix until just moistened.  Pour into greased and floured 9 x 5 loaf pan.  Both my mom and I had extra batter, so we also made a smaller loaf pan for the rest (or you could make muffins).  The original recipe said to bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean, but mine was done closer to 40 minutes to keep an eye on it!   Cool 8 minutes, and remove from pan onto wire rack.  Cool completely.  Keep refrigerated.

(If you make muffins, decrease the cooking time.)

Visitors Galore

When we arrived back from IU, we were greeted by my Mom, Dad, and brother who had arrived about an hour before us.  We spent a wonderful albeit too short weekend with them, and then they headed back to Cleveland and Philadelphia.  That Friday my mother-in-law came in for a visit, full of shopping and a few new recipes, but alas everyone has now returned, and we have no visitors on the immediate horizon…hint…hint….HINT PEOPLE!!!

Since I knew my family would get here before we would after being gone a week, our house wasn’t exactly bursting with fresh groceries, so I made a few items to stick in the freezer to get us through the next morning, and luckily it worked!!

We had herbed biscuits and Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls.   Now let’s start with the obvious – I was in a bit of a rush, so I accidentally skipped one rise before you add in the final flour, etc. so I think it affected the texture a bit; they were stickier than they should have been and therefore didn’t retain their shape very well when sliced hence why it looks more like pull-apart bread than rolls.  Needless to say, still tasty, but I am definitely going to try these again when I can concentrate on what I’m doing!!

Since I didn’t change anything (on purpose) from the original recipe I’m just going to link you to it right here.   One note, I froze them after they had risen but prior to baking.  Then I brought them (close) to room temperature still covered and baked them probably 5-10 minutes longer.

I made bread!…okay, okay French Bread Rolls…

I had a series of miserable food failures this week.  First, I made herb biscuits that ended up more like wet paste than biscuit dough (which I am very proud of myself that I actually gave it another go with my own adaptations and now have some biscuits in the freezer), then I made Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls and apparently didn’t remember how to read directions (they came out okay anyways, but I’m curious what following the recipe would do to them!)  BUT!  This, my friends, was a food failure rectified.  I had tried these rolls once, my first experience with yeast, and NEWS FLASH…I may be learning; these were much tastier and had a much better texture than my first go-around.

French Bread Rolls

I nabbed this at: My Kitchen Cafe who adapted it from allrecipes.com

• 1 1/2 cups warm water, approx. 110 degrees F
• 1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp. white sugar
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 4 cups bread flour (My Kitchen Cafe uses all-purpose)

In a bowl large enough for the flour and other ingredients, combine the warm water, yeast, and sugar.  Then, leave it alone until it gets foamy, about 10 minutes.

Then add the oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour to the mixture.  Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl.  On a lightly floured surface, dump out the dough, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, put the dough in the bowl turning to lightly coat with the oil. Cover with a damp cloth or saran, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

First deflate the dough, and then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 12-14 equal pieces, and form into round balls. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet or a silpat at least 2 inches apart.  Again, cover the rolls with a damp cloth or greased saran wrap, and let rise and double again, about 40 minutes.  While rising, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake for 12-13 minutes or until the pretty golden brown color has been achieved!

Garlic Bread, A Cookout, And A New Server

We had talked about having a cookout with our trivia TN friends for quite some time, and last Saturday we finally had liftoff.  It was perfect timing, because our new bar server was delivered on Monday, so it was a perfect chance to break it in.  Obviously I’m super excited about having a organization/serving piece…two of my favorite things; I think I’ve already established that I’m a weird bird.  Next time I’ll get a picture of it.

Anyways,  in typical fashion I made too much of everything, I mean really, waaaaaaaaaaay too much food like enough for 18 people instead of 6…whoops?

Since it came together last minute I just made simple things like pasta salad, potato salad, and homemade garlic bread for sides.  My signature “star” layer dip to munch on; I always seem to make it in one of my star Chantal dishes, and Snickers cheesecake for dessert.

I think the boys enjoyed it since they’ve started planning next one, so good times were had by all.  Since we had steak and chicken, I thought garlic bread would pair nicely; however, I usually think a number of the frozen ones have so much butter they’re not crunchy, more like you can wring the butter out of them so I decided to make my own.

Super simple, and I don’t really know how much I used of anything as I ended up making two batches, but here’s an approximate guess.

Garlic Bread (updated 10/10/09 with a new, preferred cooking method!)

• 1 loaf of French bread/baguette
• 8 Tbsp. butter, softened
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 Tbsp. parsley, finely chopped

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.    Split the bread in half horizontally.  Combine all ingredients in a bowl and spread evenly.  Place the bread on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.  If you want any further browning, you can use your broiler.

Homemade Pizza Dough

The first time I had tried a yeast based bread, I tried dinner rolls.  They came out okay, but definitely not as light and fluffy as they were supposed to be, so I tried again with this easy pizza dough I saw on Annie’s Eats.  And this time…success!! I used this to make a pesto and fresh mozzerella pizza (to be posted next), and it was quite tasty.  Corrie was excited to take the leftovers for lunch today, which since I’m dorky, makes me happy. 

Basic Pizza Dough

I found at:  Annie’s Eats (who found it at Brown Eyed Baker who had originally found it at Baking Illustrated (WHEW!!))

• ½ cup warm water (~110°)
• 1 envelope (2 ¼ tsp.) instant yeast
• 1 ¼ cups water, room temperature
• 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus some for oiling the bowl
• 4 cups bread flour, plus some for dusting
• 1 ½ tsp. salt

Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup.  Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes.  Add the room temperature water and oil and stir to combine.

Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Combine the dry ingredients at low speed for a few seconds then add the liquid ingredients slowly.  Continue to mix at low speed until the dough comes together and a cohesive mass forms.  Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook.  Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.  Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours.  Press the dough to deflate it.

To bake, place a pizza stone in the lower third of the oven.  Heat the oven to 500° for at least 30 minutes.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Divide the dough into two equal pieces.  Form both pieces of dough into smooth, round balls and cover with a damp cloth.  Let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes but no more than 30 minutes.

Working with one piece of dough and keeping the other covered, shape the dough and transfer to a pizza peel or round of parchment dusted with semolina or cornmeal.   I didn’t have any cornmeal on hand, but it didn’t really stick although I think it would have transferred to the pizza stone much better.  I definitely need to work on my shaping skills though!  It was very…rustic.  Add your toppings and move onto the pizza stone.  Bake until the edges of the crust are light brown – mine was ready in about 9 minutes; it should be about 8 to 12 minutes.  Repeat with remaining ball of dough or freeze for later use.