Tag Archives: biscuits

Recipes - Breakfast & Brunch

Biscuits & Gravy

Geeze Louise! I wasn’t going to cook at all today but an hour before supper I realized that I had taken all the cranberry biscuits up to the nursing home last night to share with mama and her friends and the night staff. Nothing to do then but make biscuits! Not quite as fancy as the sour cream and cranberry biscuits but  homemade biscuits and sausage gravy is still a great supper for a snowy night! Apologies for posting such a simple recipe but I know I have several nieces and nephews who love biscuits and gravy who also never make either. Let’s get our aprons on, y’all, and go for some B&G at home!

I used Martha White self-rising soft southern flour for the biscuits, and since I was out of last week’s buttermilk, I got buttermilk by mixing a tablespoon of white vinegar into a cup of milk. Use your fingers to cut in the shortening and work fast; the feel of the Martha White flour is silky and smooth and it produces the flakiest biscuits around. Use a biscuit cutter to shape them the size you want, kneading the dough again quickly as you cut them.

As for milk sausage gravy, that is the easiest thing in the world to make so don’t get any crazy ideas about fancy-smanchy gravy adding no telling what herbs and spices to it. You need only fried sausage, a few tablespoons of flour, lots of black pepper, and a cup and a half of milk if there’s no more than 2-3 of you eating; use all 3 cups of milk if you’re feeding four or more  people. This is the recipe for B&G from my “Missouri to Maui” cookbook; use it to get supper on the table in 30 minutes if you’re willing to walk to the kitchen and make those biscuits. Fry the sausage and make the gravy as the biscuits bake then just call ’em to the table!

Biscuits & Gravy

Ingredients for Biscuits

2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. sugar
1/3 cup Crisco shortening
3/4 cup plus 2 T. buttermilk
2 T. butter, melted

Directions Preheat oven to 450. Combine flour and sugar in large bowl; mix well. Cut in shortening with pastry blender, a fork, or your fingers until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk; stir with a fork until soft dough forms and mixture begins to pull away from sides of bowl.

Knead dough on lightly floured surface just until smooth. Roll out dough to 1/2” thickness. Cut with floured 2 1/2” round cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Brush with melted butter. Serve warm.

For Pork Sausage Gravy:

12 oz. bulk pork sausage
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
3 cups milk

Directions After frying sausage, remove from skillet then add flour, to 2 T. of the grease. With wire whisk, stir well, scraping the browned sausage bits from the pan until the flour browns..  Add the milk, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat until thickened, whisking constantly. Crumble in a few pieces of the sausage and stir to blend. Split warm biscuits and place on serving plates and serve the gravy over warm, split, or torn up pieces of biscuits.

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Recipes - Breads & Biscuits

Sour Cream Cranberry Biscuits

These biscuits have been food whispering to me since I saw the post on my sister’s Facebook page months ago, and this afternoon, waiting on the snow fall, seemed a perfect day for biscuit baking. Nothing seems as comforting as mixing up a batch of biscuits and inhaling that warming aroma when it’s freezing outside; to me that spells winter baking at its best.

With crunchy tops and edges and a soft inside these are great “as is” or they would make fine appetizers using a smaller biscuit cutter.  I used my 2-1/2″ cutter today as I plan to slice them for supper for stuffing with pieces of fried country ham.  Sour cream and honey give them their softness and orange zest and cranberries a fruity tang.  Fresh cranberries weren’t an option today so I used dried and found they added just enough chewiness to balance the otherwise soft texture.  Do brush their tops with melted butter when they are still warm from the oven.

The dough is soft and sticky so flour your counter, your hands, and your rolling pin.  I cut the butter in with my fingers until it was well incorporated with the dry ingredients.  The dough doesn’t require much kneading before rolling out but you will have to dust it with flour several times until it becomes smooth and elastic.  18 minutes at 425 was just right for browned tops and bottoms. Still no snow fall but we DO have biscuits!

Sour Cream & Cranberry Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons orange zest
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup honey
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chopped fresh cranberries

Directions Preheat oven to 425. In medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add orange zest, buttermilk, honey and sour cream. Sir well with wooden spoon to blend. Fold in the cranberries. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and add enough flour to enable kneading the dough then roll out to 1/2 inch thick. Cut with 2” biscuit cutter and place on sprayed baking sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes until nicely browned. Brush biscuit tops with melted butter. Yield: 14 biscuits.

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