Adventures In Cream Biscuits
I love biscuits. No, I mean I LOVE biscuits. I’m not above baking biscuits from a can, but I really like homemade biscuits, particularly homemade buttermilk biscuits. What I don’t like about making biscuits from scratch is the hassle of cutting cold butter into flour. I mean, I can do it and I have done it, but given a choice, I’d just as soon skip cutting in the butter. Enter cream biscuits. No butter to cut in!
This is a very fast and easy recipe and as with many recipes, once you cut out the biscuits, they can be frozen until you want to bake some fresh. You don’t even have to thaw them first! One warning…the leavening agent is baking powder and if yours isn’t fresh, the biscuits won’t rise much. I made this mistake over Thanksgiving (in addition to rolling my dough out too thin) and I ended up serving the family little biscuit-y hockey pucks. Well, they looked like hockey pucks. They were actually still delicious. But it was embarrassing. Fresh baking powder for the win!
The method, followed by the recipe: whisk or sift together your dry ingredients in a big bowl, and then add most of your cream. Stir up the whole thing with a wooden spoon, and if the dough isn’t coming together, add in the rest of the cream a little at a time until you have something you can call dough.
Then pat or roll it out to 3/4” thickness, cut it out with a 2” biscuit cutter, brush or dip the tops in melted butter, and bake. This should yield you between 8 and 12 biscuits. These are best served immediately. Easy and delicious!
If you want to up your game a little, you can serve them warm out of the oven with honey butter, which is just softened butter whipped together with some honey. This keeps indefinitely in the fridge and is just delightful. Enjoy!
Cream Biscuits
Click here for printable PDF of recipe
INGREDIENTS
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 Cup flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 Cup heavy cream
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar into a large bowl. Fold in 1 1/4 cups cream. If the dough is not soft or easily handled, fold in the remaining 1/4 cup cream, little by little.
Turn dough onto a floured surface, mound it into a ball and, using your hands or a rolling pin, press it to a thickness of about 3/4”. Cut into 2 1/2” circles. Gather dough scraps and continue to make rounds. Brush each round with melted butter and arrange on the baking sheet. Bake until golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve immediately.
If making ahead, freeze the dough rounds. When ready to bake, no need to thaw them. Just brush the rounds with the melted butter and bake as directed. They will need a couple extra minutes in the oven.
Honey Butter
Click here for printable PDF of recipe
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup softened butter*
1/4 cup honey
DIRECTIONS
Whisk both ingredients together until well incorporated. Serve at room temperature. Store in refrigerator.
NOTES
If using unsalted butter, add a generous pinch of salt.
