That's how the biscuit crumbles

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is from Lindsay of A Little Something...Sweet!  She picked Maple Cornmeal Biscuits for us to make.  This was a great recipe for me to get back on track with TWD--quick to mix up, and quick to bake.  Gillian was quite happy to help me with the mixing, too. =)

The verdict?  Sadly, I didn't like these as much as I hoped to.  I like cornmeal and maple syrup, but unfortunately, my biscuits turned out kind of dry and crumbly.  I'm not sure why.  The only change I made was to use soured milk (milk plus vinegar) in place of the buttermilk, because I didn't have any. (Oops, never mind. That was another recipe I made over the weekend. These used regular milk.)  Maybe I had too much cornmeal.  Maybe I baked them too long (though it was only 14 minutes).  The flavor was good, so I might play around with the recipe next time to get a better result.  I'm thinking of adding an egg to get a more scone-like texture.

If you'd like to give these a try for yourself, Lindsay has the recipe.  And to see how everyone else fared this week, check out the Links.  

The devil went down to Georgia

I really wish Mother Nature would make up her mind what season it is here in central Texas.  Saturday morning when I got up, it was in the mid-20s.  Today it was about 75ºF.  Tomorrow night it'll be below freezing again.  I'm so ready to be done with the temps in the 70s for a while.  The calendar almost says December, and I want it to feel at least a little like Christmas is approaching.  So I'm doing what I can to get into the right frame of mind.  I have some pretty snowflake earrings, and a string of Christmas lights necklace.  (Both get lots of comments from my customers at work.)  And I started pulling out the wrapping paper to use as backgrounds for my blog photos. =)

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is a little seasonally confused, too.  Tania of Love Big, Bake Often (who currently lives in Savannah) picked Devilish Shortcakes for us to make.  I typically consider shortcakes to be a summer dessert, and wouldn't think to make them at the end of November.  But these aren't typical shortcakes--they're chocolate!  And since I love chocolate with berries (especially raspberries), this recipe sounded like a winner regardless of what the calendar says.

Shortcakes are basically biscuits, and not all that hard to make.  You mix together dry ingredients (including cocoa powder for these chocolate ones), rub in butter, add wet ingredients & gently mix.  I added about 1/3 cup (70g) of mini chocolate chips before I added the wet ingredients.  I only made half the recipe, and formed my shortcakes using my #16 (1/4 cup) disher.  I got eight, and baked them for about 15 minutes.

For serving, I went with some organic raspberries that I picked up at Central Market.  I thought I was going to have to go with frozen berries, but these looked really good (and while they were a bit more expensive than frozen, they weren't totally outrageous).  I mixed the berries with some raspberry fruit butter that I thinned with a little water and a couple splashes of framboise.  And to boost the chocolate flavor, I made a quick sauce by melting together some chocolate and cream, and adding some vanilla and dark rum.  Naturally, there also had to be some whipped cream.

The verdict?  To be honest, after reading the comments on the P&Q from Nancy and Caitlin, I was a bit worried.  By themselves, the shortcakes seemed somewhat dry and not very sweet, even with the added chocolate chips.  But put together with the saucy raspberries and with an extra hit of chocolate, this was a very tasty dessert.

If you'd like to give these shortcakes a try for yourself, you can find the recipe on Tania's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of this week's pick, check out the Links.

Tongue-tied

I'm probably dating myself, but who else had a Strawberry Shortcake doll (when they were first popular)?  I had Strawberry and Apple Dumplin'.  My sisters had various other dolls.  Brianna doesn't have any of the dolls, but she has a number of Strawberry Shortcake books.  They're a parent's worst nightmare.  Don't believe me?  Then you try reading one aloud some time! =)  Here's a sample:

"When Strawberry Shortcake visits Seaberry Beach, she daydreams about a little mermaid named Pearlberry who wants to live on land more than anything in the world.  A Berry Fairy offers to make Pearlberry's wish come true--but only if Pearlberry promises to leave her home in the ocean forever."

Lots of berry this and berry that, and crazy character names.  And these things are long!  It makes me tired just thinking about it.  All I have to say is, thank goodness Brianna can now read them for herself.  And she actually enjoys reading to Gillian, too, which is good for both of them.  Not to mention it gets me off the hook at least some of the time. =)

Now one strawberry shortcake I don't have any trouble talking about is the one we made for Tuesdays with Dorie this week.  My awesome and funny blogging friend, Cathy of The Tortefeasor, picked Tender Shortcakes for us this week.  It's a wonderful choice for this time of year, with lots of fresh berries in the stores.

Several people noted on the P and Q that Dorie’s shortcakes must have been rather large, and that they reduced the recipe. I decided to cut it in half. One thing I’ve been doing recently is converting all my measurements to grams; it’s easier when measuring and adjusting recipe yields, since I don’t have to bother with fractions. I realized last weekend that I’ve finally gotten reasonably comfortable with metric measurements--I was watching a baking show on the Cooking Channel that used grams, and the measurements actually made sense to me. So what I ended up with was:

270g (2 cups) all-purpose flour (King Arthur)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspooon table salt
42g (3 tablespoons) vanilla sugar
85g (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
170g (6oz) cold heavy cream

Shortcakes are basically biscuits, so they were quick to make. You whisk together the dry ingredients, then rub in the butter (I did it by hand; you could also do the whole thing in the food processor if you want), then add the cream and stir with a fork until the dough starts to come together. Then you knead it just a bit to bring it together the rest of the way. I used my #16 scoop (1/4 cup) to divide up the dough and ended up with 9 shortcakes.  I baked them for 14 minutes.

The only change I really made to the recipe (other than reducing it) was to substitute vanilla sugar for the granulated sugar. I love Dorie’s direction to rub citrus zest into sugar and have taken to doing that with vanilla beans as well. A few weeks back I did that with some sugar and then realized that I didn’t need it for a recipe. So I had a bunch of vanilla sugar on hand. I put some in the shortcakes, sprinkled some over the cut up strawberries, and used some to sweeten the whipped cream.

The verdict? Wow. This was a fabulous dessert. The shortcakes ended up being the perfect size. As several people commented, the biscuits are tasty enough to eat on their own, though the fruit and cream didn’t hurt. =) Mine didn’t taste strongly of vanilla, but it was a subtle presence in the dessert that was quite good. Everyone’s plates were quickly cleaned.

For the full recipe, head over to Cathy’s blog (plus she writes the most entertaining posts!). And be sure to check out the Leave Your Links page to see what everyone else thought of this week’s recipe.

From brownies to biscuits

No, your eyes do not deceive you--that is not a picture of White Chocolate Brownies.  I haven't been having much luck with Tuesdays with Dorie recipe selections for the past few weeks.  A couple weeks ago was Apple-Apple Bread Pudding.  I'm not a big fan of custardy things, and didn't get a chance to try it anyway, with all the illness around here.  Last week I skipped the Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie.  Coconut is evil and is generally banned from entering this house, and I'm not that excited about banana desserts, either.  So going into this week, I knew I should really participate so I wouldn't miss three weeks in a row.  But I wasn't exactly thrilled about the latest recipe, either, since I don't really like white chocolate.  That's too bad, because I've recently gotten to know this week's host, Marthe of Culinary Delights, via Twitter, and I wanted to make the recipe because of that.  So I decided to try to overcome my dislike of white chocolate and try them anyway.

Sadly, that try wasn't very successful.  Now, I admit, I did play around with the recipe just a bit.  I had white chocolate, but after tasting it, I realized that it had been in my pantry way too long.  So I tossed it, and tried milk chocolate instead (similar sweetness, I figured).  I skipped the meringue topping.  And I tried making individual brownies in my muffin tin, to avoid the problem that many people reported of their brownies being under-done in the middle.  The taste wasn't that bad, but the texture was very unappealing.  Soggy from the raspberries, and as my friend Nancy put it, rather spongy.  Not good.  And not even photogenic:

So what to do?  Well, I decided to do a rewind as well.  One of the recipes that I missed recently was the Sweet Cream Biscuits that were picked by Melissa of Love at First Bite back in April.  Hard to believe I missed them, since the recipe is a quick one to make.  But we had a chance to try them for breakfast on Monday morning.

Only five ingredients--flour, baking powder, a bit of sugar and salt and a bunch of heavy cream--go into these biscuits.  That means they only dirty one bowl, which is always nice.  You whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the cream and mix it with a fork.  The dough gets lightly kneaded to bring it together, then rolled out to a thickness of about half an inch.  I used a cutter that was just a bit over two inches in diameter, and got 16 biscuits (11 or 12 on the first pass, and the rest after rerolling the scraps).  I put the biscuits close together on a parchment-lined baking sheet and baked them at 425F for about 15 minutes, I think.  By the time they were done, I was tired of hearing from the girls about how they were starving, so we didn't really let them cool at all before digging in. =)

The verdict?  Well, Brianna and Gillian each ate three, so I guess they liked them. =)  (They really weren't very big, so that isn't as impressive as it sounds.)  It gave them a chance to sample the various jams in the fridge, too.  No one wanted the cherry (I must have bought that for Jamie), but blueberry, blackberry and raspberry all made it to the table.  Even just with butter (the way I ate one of mine), these were very good.  I definitely think they'll make future appearances around here, especially since they're so easy to make.

If you'd like to give the brownie recipe a try, head on over to Marthe's blog.  Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did.  You can see what the other TWD bakers did with this recipe on this week's Leave Your Links post.  And be sure to check out Clara's blog--she's been waiting a very long time for this day to come. =)  For the biscuits, Melissa has the recipe on her TWD post.

Berry good (TWD)

I've mentioned before that my husband Jamie gives me a hard time about eating leftover desserts for breakfast.  In the case of this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, I really don't see how he can complain.  Biscuits and fruit--sounds like breakfast to me!  

This week's selection is Mixed Berry Cobbler, chosen by Beth of Our Sweet Life.  I really enjoyed this pick, in part because it's something I probably wouldn't have chosen myself.  I like fruit desserts, but I make crisps much more often than cobblers.  And even when I do make cobbler, it's more likely to be something like peach, rather than berry.  I tend to reserve berries for eating straight up or in fruit salad dressed with a bit of sugar or simple syrup.  But one of the great things about this recipe is that it works quite well with frozen fruit, so I can have my cake and eat it too, as it were.  =)

Another reason I enjoyed this recipe is that it gave me a chance to try out a new flavor combination.  Dorie's filling recipe calls for a mix of berries, some sugar, cornstarch and lemon or lime zest.  I'd usually go with the lemon without even thinking much about it.  But lately I've seen quite a few recipes for raspberry with lime, and I've been wanting to see if I like it.  So I went with a combination of raspberries, blackberries and lime zest.

I wasn't sure that I was in the mood for a big cobbler, so I decided to make half the recipe and make it in two smaller dishes (about 2-cup capacity each).  Even though the recipe says you don't need to thaw the frozen fruit, I was a bit skeptical, so after tossing the berries with the sugar, cornstarch and lime zest, I microwaved them for a couple minutes on half power.  Oh, and because a number of people mentioned in the P&Q that the cobbler was a bit soupy, I used close to the original amount of cornstarch even though I was halving the recipe.  I went with the topping recipe as written, patting the dough into two rounds and topping each dish with one.  I baked my cobblers for about 30 minutes, until the tops were lightly browned and the juices were very bubbly around the edges.  

The verdict?  Very tasty.  I thought that the simple biscuit topping was a nice contrast to the tart fruit, and I really liked the bit of lime in there.  I'll definitely make this again.  Probably even later this week, since I still have half a bag each of the raspberries and blackberries.  And it sounds better than the other things I have on hand for breakfast.  =)  

Want to give it a try yourself?  Check out Beth's blog, or check out this page, where Dorie shared the recipe with NPR.

TWD: Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection comes from Ashley of Eat Me, Delicious.  I think we were all a bit relieved to see that she selected something that wasn't a cake.  =)  Last week was crazy--everyone at my house was sick at some point during the week--so I didn't get to do much baking.  (That's why there aren't any posts since the last TWD recipe.)  So I was glad to have something not too complicated when I finally got a chance to try out the recipe on Sunday evening.  While Dorie mentions that these would be a good brunch item, we found that they are nice paired with soup as well.

I really enjoyed the flavor of the biscuits.  Using brown sugar rather than regular granulated sugar really complemented the pecans.  I may have used a bit too much flour--I couldn't find anything in the book to indicate how much a cup of flour is supposed to weigh.  My usual cup of flour is about 4.5 oz, but I know the dip and sweep method usually results in about 5 oz, so that's what I went with.  I also think I probably overworked the dough--next time I'll add the pecans before the dough is completely brought together.  Like some of the others mentioned, my biscuits seemed kind of scone-like.  But still very tasty.  

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

(From Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

(Makes about 12 biscuits)

2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
1/2 cup cold sour cream
1/4 cold whole milk
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch-diameter biscuit cutter and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Whisk the flour(s), baking powder, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You'll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between--and that's just right.

Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. Grab a fork and gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you've got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle kneading--3 or 4 turns should be just enough to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead 2 to 3 times to incorporate them.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour, pat the dough out with your hands or roll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don't worry if the dough isn't completely even--a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.

Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of the first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working with them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2-inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet. (The biscuits can be made to this point and frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight and kept for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting-- just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)

Bake the biscuits for 14-18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.