Mmmm Biscuits!

On Sunday morning I had a craving for scrambled eggs and biscuits.

There's nothing like a hot fluffy biscuit. On a plate with scrambled eggs, maybe spread with a little pomelo marmalade, it starts a weekend off right.

A healthier biscuit would be made with whole wheat flour. These are not. However, they're also not made with chemicals. And they are scrumptious.

This recipe comes from a book my mum gave me called Biscuits, Pancakes and Quick Breads by Beverly Cox.

If I was feeding teenage boys, I would use this book every day. Cox gives a recipe for biscuit mix that you store in the freezer (like you would store Bisquik in the cupboard) and then scoop out enough to make almost-instant biscuits, pizzas, cobblers, and everything else you can make with biscuit dough.

I have not stored it in the freezer, because we are two middle-aged people who should not eat biscuits on a regular basis.

Instead, I mix the butter and dry ingredients the night before, or in the morning before we go to the farmers market, and refrigerate it. When we get home I turn on the oven while I unpack the groceries. I put the tablespoon of butter in a small pyrex dish in the pre-heating oven to melt. Then I stir the liquid into the dry, pat the dough into a rectangle, cut it into rectangular biscuits (it's too early in the morning to mess with fancy shapes), and bake.

While the biscuits bake, I scramble the eggs and Larry squeezes the o.j. And then we have a feast.

(In the unlikely event you have leftover biscuits, store them at room temperature and re-heat them to eat with soup or for breakfast the next day.)

Fluffy Biscuits
1 3/4 cups unbleached white flour (I use Arrowhead Mills organic)
2 1/2 tsp aluminum-free baking powder (Bob's Red Mill or Rumford's)
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp salted butter
1/2 cup whipping cream, plus up to 3 tbsp milk if needed
1 tbsp butter, melted

Sift flower, baking powder and salt together. Using a pastry blender or your fingertips, cut in the 6 tbsp butter. It should resemble large breadcrumbs with a few larger pieces of butter remaining. At this point it can be refrigerated (2 weeks) or frozen (3 months) until you need it.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Put the biscuit mix in a bowl and stir in the 1/2 cup cream with a fork. Add extra milk, 1 tbsp at a time, to make a moist, workable dough. (I added no extra milk, but flour varies. You want a dough that holds together, but is not too wet. Worst case scenario - your biscuits are too crumbly or too dense. They'll still be good to eat, and each time you make them you'll get a better feel for the dough.)

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat to a 3/4-inch-deep rectangle. Cut into 8 roughly even pieces. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet (I use a reusable silicon liner called a Sil-Pat that I got at Sur La Table). Brush lightly with the melted butter. Bake in the middle of the oven 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned top and bottom.

Makes 8 fluffy biscuits