Double Take: Cheesy Chive Biscuits

When I saw this as Mel's next choice, I misread it entirely. I replied with something like great! I think cheddar garlic biscuits sound good. How I got cheddar garlic biscuits out of cheesy chive, I'm not sure. The garlic must be taking over my brain! After reading the recipe, I learned there was certainly neither cheddar nor garlic but as a rare upside compared to some of the bread recipes in the book, the recipe yield was 7 biscuits. That sounded more reasonable than recipes which prepared 40 hamburger buns. Whew. I've been really cramped for time lately due to some of the elements on my project. Since I knew we were making ravioli from the list, I made both of these on the same night. Rebecca and Mike joined me so you get the benefit of their rating.

Preparation:

I've been making biscuits since I was small. I can remember helping cut them out when I was 3 or 4 so I'll admit I didn't worry too much about the instructions listed in the book. However, I still read them. One atypical variation in this recipe to my normal White Lily standby is the use of butter rather than shortening.

Anywho, 2 c. plain flour, 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tbsp of baking powder. Basic biscuits. Well...not if you use white lily self rising flour, then its just the flour, but I digress.

Instead of 1/3 c. shortening, the recipe called for 1/3 c. butter. In my experience, extra shortening is a good thing. I stuck with the recipe but more butter wouldn't have hurt. Cut the butter finely into the flour with a pastry blender if you have one. Otherwise, a fork works.

When the butter is mixed in the flour such that it balls up into small pea sized bits, its time to add parmesan and chives. Sadly, the heat wave has pretty well damaged my chive crop. Harris Teeter saves the day. We chopped up maybe 5-10 chive stems and tossed them in the mixture with a 1/2 cup of parmesan. I didn't buy the fancy parmesan. Instead I used the sort from the refridgerated section.

Then add 3/4 c. milk and stirred gently to mix and moisten the flour mixture.

You can roll out biscuits however you like. In terms of cleanup ease, I prefer to flour a silicone baking mat and roll the dough out with a slick sided drinking glass. I have a rolling pin but when there are multiple people in the kitchen and minimal counter space, a cup works well.

I folded the dough over itself, rolled it out to about 1/4 of an inch. I refolded it, rolled it down to 1/4 of an inch again. Then I folded the dough to be 3/4 " thick and flattened it down to somewhere around 1/2" thick. I don't have round cookie cutters or "biscuit cutters". I grew up using what was handy. Most of the time, that was a cup. I picked a different glass than the one from the rolling pin to get a slightly smaller biscuit and had about 10 biscuits which were around 2 - 2/1/2 " in diameter and one baby biscuit.

I baked them on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone baking mat for 12-15 minutes at 400 F.

Review:

We liked them very much! They were flaky but could've been more buttery. We opted to dip them in the ravioli sauce or butter them or both. We thought they be fun to switch around the flavors. Rebecca and I thought rosemary would be good but she thought a mild cheese would go well with rosemary whereas I was thinking pepper jack. She might be right though. I also would be all about making some garlic cheddar biscuits. The final biscuit was less airy than a White Lily biscuit. I think that's a difference in using butter vs. shortening. I also think I'd use a bit more butter in the future..at least 25% more if not 50% more.

Be sure to head over to Fabulously Fun Food to get Mel's 2 bits worth.

Note: Due to my schedule, we're going to have a temporary pause in Double Takes posts. I'm going to try to get some incomplete posts finished and will still be posting though. Double Takes will resume in August.

What flavors would you like in a biscuit?