SUPER easy flaky Biscuits... there's a video too :)

Ok, you want biscuits?  I can get you biscuits on the table in 30 mins if you focus :)


This super quick and easy biscuit recipe can be completed in just 30 minutes! Recipe below! --- --- RECIPE 3 cups all purpose flour 2? TBS sugar, more or less to taste 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (knife tip worth :)) 2 tsp baking powder 1 1/2 sticks butter/margarine combo (3/4 cup) I like a combo but you can do all butter or all margarine if you want, I won't judge pinch of salt RUB it all together, float and drop method, yeah, i invented that term ADD 1 cup of milk with 1 egg mixed in Mix with knife, be nice pat on floured surface and roll to a long rectangle fold a couple of times, flip and repeat Pat to about 1 inch, cut biscuits with a straight sided cutter, don't twist!, yeah this is one of those times it really actually matters BAKE in preheated 450 for 15 mins

IF you need to, brush them with butter when they come out of the oven.
Throw them in a basket, be prepared to make more... they're delicious.

EAT!!!

here's the youtube link if you'd like to check out the other videos too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86yMnLdKoDk


Thanks for all your support, I'm trying a new thing trying to link the blog and the YouTube channel which finally has MY name on it, so I'm Tracy Cooks in Austin everywhere!!!

/tracy

Old school batter biscuits, yeah, there's a serious good thing about me reading these old cookbooks like novels, I discover little tidbits like this! I didn't invent this recipe but I futzed a little bit because, well, we all know I'm incapable of not futzing with a found recipe.

I have about a hundred recipes for biscuits, I'm not kidding you.  I collect recipes and old cook books and read them like novels.  I discover little tidbits like this recipe.  I don't know how old it is but one of the versions of this is in a book from 1948 so your guess is as good as mine.  There are as many current versions of this, I'm sure, online but this is my version.  These biscuits are light and airy and fluffy and occupy that space somewhere between a flaky biscuit, a layered biscuit and a cake, really.

Oh and just a heads up, you going to want to go and make these immediately, trust me on this one.

TRACY'S BATTER BISCUIT

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter (one stick in the usa)
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 TB sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 TB baking powder

1 3/4 cups milk
2 TB lemon juice

Melt butter in 8x8 dish.  Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients and combine.  Pour into hot butter, spread out and divide if desired.  Bake at 430 for 30 minutes or until browned.  do not over bake



INSTRUCTIONS AND METHOD

Preheat the oven to 430 and take a 8x8 dish and drop a stick of butter in it, shove it in the oven and set to preheat to 430.  By the time it's heated, the butter is melted :)  See how that works?  Mix the dry in one bowl and the wet in another...

    

Add the milk mixture to the dry and mix it, trust me, it's supposed to look like that! Pour it into the (warm) buttered dish and smooth it out.  You'll see it's starting to poof, that's ok :)  Smooth it out a bit, the best you can.

     
Slide your knife down the side to get it buttered and cut it into 9, less is silly :)

    

Put it into a preheated oven for 20 minutes THEN spin and time for another 5-8, you want them browned and cooked throughout. 

    

OK, get that corner piece out, oh yeah baby, cut it and slather it with butter and golden syrup or jam or just plain... they're delicious and tender and worth making. 

    

Just more beauty shots 

 

Biscuits baked in sweet milk . Completely old fashioned comfort food and the best, sweetest, breakfast treat or dessert EVER.

We all know I love a good 'old lady' recipe.  I read antique cook books all the time.  I have a stack of old cookbooks ranging from 1890 and onward on my kitchen table at all times.  Whenever I can steal away a moment, I will sit and browse through them with a quiet glass of wine, enjoying the simple pleasure of them OR I will read them voraciously if I am in search of something new and fabulous.

A few years ago, I came across a recipe for biscuits baked in sweet milk and it tweaked my curiosity.  It is a breakfast item?  Biscuits?  Is it dessert?  It's sweet?  Is sweet milk regular milk?  I make a rather killer biscuit, can I use MY biscuits for this?  Cinnamon?  Oh wait, I LOVE cinnamon rolls... is this a cinnamon roll in milk?  OH OH this is EXACTLY the sort of recipe I needed in my repertoire. 

I started playing with the recipe and tweaking and pulling and pushing and came up with my own version that I present to you here.  It's lusciously old fashioned feeling.  It's rich and creamy and light and airy and tender and there's little crisp bits and the milk becomes thick and unctuous like a custard and you pour it over the biscuit.  There are few things I make regularly that I like better than this.  Seriously, I thought about holding this one close to the chest as my own but then I realized that you need to be as happy as I and my local tester.  It's full of nursery memories.  It's as good on a cold winters day to warm up as in the middle of Texas heat in July.  It's happiness making food 

I made it today and took it, straight from the oven to her house and had coffee and a visit and the children all had heaping helpings of it.  It confirmed to me that you need to be able to produce this at your whim.

The recipe is painfully simple but so complex and divine in it's simplicity.  It's almost the perfect example of why I read the old old old cookbooks.  They absolutely, completely, totally knew what they were doing.  

Make this, you'll feel the happy.  I promise. 

TRACY'S BISCUITS BAKED IN SWEET MILK

Biscuits: 
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk (plus a teaspoon or two if you need it to make a lovely dough)
Middle bit:
1/2 cup butter/margarine combo
handful of sugar for coating (1/4 to 1/3 cup?)
cinnamon, the amount you want to shake on
Sauce:
2 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
healthy dribble of vanilla

QUICKIE instructions: 

Make biscuit dough.  Roll it out and cover with butter/margarine.  Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and roll up.  Cut into 1 inch pieces and arrange in a lightly greased dish.  Heat the milk/sugar/vanilla to boiling point (small bubbles around the edge) and pour over the biscuits.

Bake 350 for 30-40 minutes.  Allow to sit about 10 minutes before diving in and completely devouring. 

LONG winded, play by play, with commentary pictures and method:

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease a 8x8 (I use round) baking dish.

Combine the flour and shortening.  Mix with your fingertips until it looks like wet sand.  
   
Add 1/2 cup milk, all at once, and mix with a fork until it's a lovely, soft, dough.  It should clear the side of the bowl and come together without being sticky.  You can add a little dribble of milk more if you need.
   
Put dough on lightly floured surface and roll to about 10x10?  Don't measure, here's my hand as a indication of the size.  Mix butter and margarine on a board with a fork.
   
Spread the butter/margarine on the dough, all the way to the ends!  Sprinkle with sugar, relatively generously.  I think it's about 1/4-1/3 cup's worth.
   
Ahhh, sprinkle action shot.  Then shake on cinnamon.  Not too much, not too little, just a nice light coating unless you're a cinnamon freak then have at it!!  Start at one end and start to roll, relatively tightly but don't fret about it,
   
Roll it and seal the edge if you feel the need.  I don't usually bother.  With the seam side down, cut the roll into 9-10 1 inch pieces, look at those lovely biscuit sugar cinnamon butter beauties!
   
Arrange them in the dish, in a single layer, feel free to squash them in to fit.  Heat the milk/sugar/vanilla in the microwave until little bubbles appear on the sides, I do 3 minutes.
   
Stir the hot milk and pour it over the biscuits, yeah, really!  It should perfectly cover them.  I had 2 that were a bit small so they floated, don't worry about it.
   
Bake it in the middle of  the oven (with a pan underneath because sometimes it boils over) and set timer for 30 minutes.  Check it, mine needed another 10 to brown up and be worthy of being taken for a coffee meeting with a girlfriend.
   
Let it rest about 5 minutes. Then DIVE IN!  The biscuit is light and tender and crisp on top.  The milk is sweet and thickened from the flour in the biscuit and is almost custardy.  

It's my most most favorite thing as a sweet treat.  Seriously, really and truly.  It's my dessert island treat.

I didn't get great pictures because, well, we were all trying desperately to get our own pieces and slather it with the thickened, sweet, milk to pour over top and I also wanted to eat mine as quickly as possible :)
  

I took it to my friend's house today and she and I devoured our hunks of it.  

The 2 teenagers loved it, the 10 year old loved it, and the 5 year old had seconds and thirds.  The 2 men working upstairs also cleaned their bowls.  I love a houseful of willing testers!

It's a solid hit and my gift to you :)  Go make it, you're going to love it! 

/enjoy