TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

I bring FABULOUS news! As of yesterday afternoon, my oven has been fixed. Since only the glass shattered, they were able to just replace the glass (and my landlords don't have to buy me a new stove). Putting the door back on proved to be quite a challenge for both our handyman and my husband who was helping. Apparently we have an older stove and the door is heavy and the hinges are old so the heavy door on the old hinges was a bad combination. But after a few adjustments, I am back in business!

Since, my oven wasn't finally repaired until yesterday afternoon and last week was so successful, I decided to go back to my trusty toaster oven this past weekend. We had a house guest on Saturday morning so I decided to whip up a batch of biscuits for our brunch. And when I say whip up, I mean it! A few dry ingredients, pour in some cream and roll out the biscuits. These were so much easier than using a pastry cutter to cut cold butter into flour.

First Batch, 1/2" thickness

I followed Dorie's instructions and roll them to 1/2" thickness. I used a square cookie cutter and got about 10 biscuits. They didn't rise as much as I wanted them to but they weren't flat hockey pucks either. While the first batch was cooking (I could only fit 4 on my toaster oven stoneware pan) I went to the P&Q for this week and found many people mentioning Alton Brown's instructions to be very helpful. I hadn't seen the episode and couldn't find it online so I read the instructions of his recipe hoping for a couple hints. He mentions placing the biscuits close together on the baking sheet. Of course, I thought this way odd. When I make cookies, I always space them out for spreading. I decided to give it a try. When the second batch of biscuits went into the toaster oven, I placed them close together, expecting them not to rise very much since these were also the biscuits I rolled out second so they were worked a little more. And to my surprise, they rose! They didn't rise a ton but again I didn't have flat hockey pucks.

Second Batch, 1" thickness

I sent the extra biscuits from brunch home with our friend. And later that night I remembered I had bought strawberries that were on sale and had wanted to have strawberry shortcakes. Since the biscuits whip so fast and I still had 1 cup left of heavy cream. I decided to make another batch.

I had also noticed in Alton Brown's instructions that he said to only roll out to 1" thickness to prevent from overworking the dough. Since we were having strawberry shortcakes I thought thicker biscuits would be better. I only got a total of 7 out of the second recipe but the rose very nicely.

I know the key to making biscuits is not the overwork the dough and I definitely saw a difference. These were delicious and easy and will most likely be my go to recipe for biscuits.

Our hostess this week was Melissa of Love At First Bite. You will find the recipe on her blog.