I made these lovelies at Thanksgiving, but I was so busy with finals and intersession that I am just sitting down to write about them now! I wanted to add something new and exciting to our normal Thanksgiving routine, so I picked this recipe out of Food & Wine to try. I had never made any type of biscuit before, and was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the dough right, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out- my family was impressed, too! Also, I still don’t know what sorghum butter is?
sor·ghum/ˈsôrgəm/
Noun:
1. A widely cultivated cereal (genus Sorghum) native to warm regions of the Old World. (Old World?) It is a major source of grain and of feed for livestock.
2. A syrupy sweetener made from a type of this cereal.
Ok… But the recipe said that you can use pure maple syrup instead of sorghum syrup, so I didn’t that instead!
Biscuits
1/2 pound sliced bacon
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Butter
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons sorghum syrup or pure maple syrup
Salt
Preheat the oven to 425°. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large skillet, cook the bacon over moderate heat until crisp, about 7 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels and finely chop it. Ya, I definitely made the bacon in the microwave. It’s the 21st Century.
In a large bowl, whisk the 4 1/2 cups of flour with the baking powder, sugar, kosher salt and baking soda. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter until it is the size of small peas. I didn’t even know what a pastry blender was, and my mom tried to draw one on a Post-It for me but I still had never seen one. So I “cut” the the butter with a regular wooden spoon. About this time I was getting a little nervous that they weren’t going to turn out…
Stir in the buttermilk, scallions and chopped bacon just until incorporated. Scrape the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead it gently just until it comes together. … and it did come together! No pastry blender necessary (although my mom did get me one for Christmas after this incident, har har…)
Using a floured rolling pin, roll the biscuit dough out to a 1/2-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch round biscuit cutter, stamp out 16 rounds of dough. No biscuit cutter, used a glass cup.
Gently gather the scraps to form 2 or 3 more biscuits. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and bake for about 25 minutes, until they are well-risen and golden brown; turn the baking sheet once halfway through baking.
In a small bowl, thoroughly blend the unsalted butter with the maple syrup and season with salt.
Serve the bacon-scallion biscuits warm with the sorghum butter.
Look at these tiny masterpieces. (This picture is not an endorsement for Lay’s potato chips). THEY WERE SO GOOD. And the maple syrup butter, oh em gee, phenom. I am going to make it more often- it’s sweet and salty and tastes like pancakes. It went so wonderful with the bacon-scallion biscuits.
I also sauteed some shallots in a white wine sauce to eat with my turkey. My family thought I was crazy. I don’t care. I love shallots. Shally shally shallots. I love shallots.
Brava! Happy Thanksgiving!
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/bacon-scallion-biscuits-with-sorghum-butter
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