No bread? No problem!

In a house full of growing kids (and growing husband hehe), it's not uncommon to run out of the basic staples like eggs, milk, and bread. It actually becomes the norm. Before baking and cooking became a part of my life, running out of bread meant no sandwiches, no toast, and worst of all no breakfast for that day (I mean come on now, what will you eat your eggs and bacon with?), which meant everyone was eating cereal that day (don't get me wrong, I love cereal BUT I love a hot cooked breakfast even more! Oh and bacon!). So today's blog post, in honor of the light bulb that went off in my head as an answer to running out of our ultimate staple (bread), is about one of my favorite carb-loaded comfort foods of all time and my answer to "Moooom! We ran outta bread!". Never fear BISCUITS are here!

Fluffy, flaky, melt in your mouth goodness! Now my first several biscuit attempts DID NOT look like this. These are my biscuits now, after SEVERAL (failed) attempts.

So it started off with the Google search for the right biscuit recipe. And then hours of watching Food Network episodes about biscuits (this was before YouTube and smart phones of course). But no matter what recipe I used or how many times I watched people make it on TV, I just couldn't get it right. My biscuits always turned out flat, hard, and very tough. It took several tries (and I mean several!!!) before I finally got it right. And I could have saved a lot of time and flour and butter if I had known then what I know now.

My biggest problem was in the mixing part. You ever mix up a batch of biscuits and the instructions tell you NOT to overmix and over knead, but only mix/knead just until the dry incorporates into the wet and the dough comes together BUT you still go ahead and mix it MORE anyway because it just doesn't look right or it looks like it could use just a FEW more turns of the spoon and a little more kneading and then a FEW more?

Welllll, I did that...over and over and over. Even though I knew I wasn't supposed to per the instructions. And it was because I overthought it....I mean come on...all the flour is still not incorporated and there's still pats of butter visibly there and not mixed in completely. Now here is the part where you will need to trust me. My dozens of failed biscuit attempts should be enough to make you trust me (or at least I hope :-)). DO NOT OVERMIX! Yes the recipe really means it. The dough is supposed to look like it's not well incorporated. The pats of butter are supposed to look like they have not been mixed in well. Because it is those little pieces of intact butter that creates pockets or layers of air during the baking process resulting in a flaky, fluffy biscuit.

Overmixing also really toughens up your biscuits. And boy did I know something or two about tough biscuits! So when the recipe says to mix only a certain number of times or to mix ONLY until dry incorporates with the wet ingredients...trust it and do it.

I had just bought square biscuit cutters (that also double up as cookie cutters) from Macy's and I wanted to use them the first chance I got. So I made square biscuits.

Now let's get down to business...biscuit business. After using soooo many different recipes, each producing it's own different type of biscuit, I found a recipe by www.jocooks.com to be the BEST, most FLUFFY, Buttery, Cheesy, and FLAKY biscuits EVER! I came across this recipe only because I had just had pizza night so I still had about three quarters of the huge bag of Costco size shredded mozzarella left over that I needed to use up. So of course I searched for "mozarella biscuits" on Google, thinking well it's not really conventional to use mozzarella in biscuits but it's worth a try. Otherwise my family would be eating pizzas all month long (although that wouldn't have been a bad thing too).

Oh and as a side note, you might not even notice the cheese in the biscuits. The cheese just becomes part of the biscuit so you don't even have to tell anyone your "secret" ingredient <<insert winky eye emoticon. But you WILL notice how much more flavorful and moist the biscuits are. So in case you haven't already checked out the website for the most incredible biscuit recipe ever, here it is:

Ingredients:

- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

- 2 Tablespoons baking powder

- 2 teaspoon salt

- 9 Tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 Tbsp) cold butter, cut in cubes

- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (try not to go overboard and stick with 2 cups because the cheese can weigh down the biscuits and they will not fluff up as much)

- 1 3/4 cups cold milk

- 1 egg, for egg wash

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.
2. In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.
3. Cut the cold butter into pieces, and add it to the bowl with flour.
4. Using a pastry cutter, or two knives cut into the butter until the butter forms into small peas. (My TIP: I use my hands to rub the butter into the flour because I do not own a pastry cutter and using the two knives would just take up too much time. But be careful NOT to overwork the batter because you don't want the butter to melt. If you have a food processor or a blender, that will work very well too. Just use the Pulse function so you do not overdo it. I hardly ever use my blender/food processor for biscuits only because it means having to wash it and that's just one more thing I do not have the time to do :-))
5. Add the cheese and milk to the bowl and continue mixing until the dough comes together (My TIP: This is the part I was talking about. TRUST this step and DO NOT OVERMIX). Use your hands if necessary.
6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and continue kneading a few times, do not over knead (TIP: TRUST the step!). Roll out the dough so that it's about half an inch thick.
7. Using a round cookie cutter, you can also use a glass if you don't have a round cookie cutter, start cutting the biscuits. My cookie cutter was about 3 inches in diameter, so the biscuits are a pretty big size.
8. Brush the biscuits with the egg wash and bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes then let cool on a wire rack.

Here are some pictures of one of my biscuit making sessions.

I used the fluted side of my biscuit cutter just because I felt like making them pretty that day.

I could have cut them to be a little thicker but I was really trying to go for the portion control thing. But who was I kidding? Note: I didn't use my silpats (which I use regularly when baking) because they are not recommended for anything over 350 degrees F.

Hot out of the oven and right onto my wire racks

Flaky and fluffy. What you can't see or taste is the incredible buttery, cheesy flavor of these beautiful biscuits! I usually make bacon (or ham/turkey/sausage) cheese biscuit sandwiches for breakfast but that's only if the biscuits are not devoured before the bacon is cooked hehe.

Thank you Jo Cooks! Your biscuit recipe rocks!!! So to all my biscuit lovers who I know will be jumping up right now after reading this (NOTE: you do not need to wait to run out of bread, I repeat, you do not need to wait to run out of bread) to whip up a batch of this deliciousness, TRUST the RECIPE! And I promise you that you will be a biscuit-making expert your first time, every time!

But on the off chance that you ran outta bread but you don't want biscuits, oh my what then? Well you will just have to make bread! Join me next time for that blog post :-).

Some basic tools of the trade you will need for great biscuit making. As with many of the products that I highly recommend on my blog (which are also products I own and have bought myself), these are multi-purpose and will serve many of your other needs in the kitchen. Cookie sheets can be used for baking cookies, making sheet cakes, roasting vegetables, or finishing off pork chops or chicken in the oven. The biscuit cutters are not for biscuits only. They can cut cookies, fondant shapes, scones, and any other baked good that you can imagine. The dual side of both round and fluted styles makes for such great versatility! The Ninja blender is amazing and will give you the power you need in a blender, and processor. And the price cannot be beat! You will definitely get your money's worth :-). Great buys, great quality products!