Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Cheddar & Zucchini Biscuits

Icrave southern biscuits in all forms. Biscuits and gravy, chicken and biscuits, biscuits with butter, biscuits with cream and fruit- I want it all. Sadly I feel like everytime I make biscuits- it's never as good as I get in the south. But I'm ok with that because I'm not a professional pastry chef- and those delicious biscuits are what I look forward to every year when I cross into North Carolina. So rather than attempt the perfect buttermilk biscuits- I took some leftover garden zucchini and cheddar and incorporated them into biscuits. And the best part is that the kids loved it! 


Cheddar & Zucchini Biscuits 

Fridge: 
1/2 cup of cheddar cheese, shredded
3/4 cup milk 
1/4 cup butter, cold 
1 cup zucchini, grated 
3 tbs heavy cream (optional) 

Pantry: 
2 cups flour, plus extra for rolling 
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt 
1 tbs sugar 
1/4 tsp ground cumin 
1/4 tsp ground ginger 
1/3 tsp ground nutmeg 
1/4 cup shortening (substitute cold butter if you don't have this) 

Tools: 
Baking tray 
Parchment paper (optional) 
Mixing bowl
Rolling pin (optional) 
Mixing spoon
Sharp long knife or cutter shape of your choice 
Pastry brush (optional) 

Preheat oven to 425. Add parchment paper for easy clean up. 

Add flour, baking powder, salt, sugar,  ground cumin, ground ginger and ground nutmeg to the bowl. Mix well. 

Add the cold butter and shortening to the bowl and using your hands, mix them into the flour mixture. Combine the ingredients until it becomes almost like wet sand texture or crumbly. 

Add the grated zucchini and cheese. Mix well and then slowly pour in the milk while mixing with a spoon. The dough will be slightly wet which is fine. 

Sprinkle some flour on a clean counter and dump the dough onto the flour. Sprinkle some more flour on top of the dough and either roll or hand pat the dough down to an inch thick. I used my hands (one less thing dirty). It required a bit of flour on my hands as well. I tried to flatten the dough into a square shape as I was going to cut the dough into square/rectangle shape. 

Once the dough was flatten, I took my long knife and cut across 3 times and down 3 times. It gave me 16 biscuits, but the outside pieces were not perfectly shaped- but my belly doesn't care about that! Use a cookie cutter, or end of a cleaned empty can to cut circular biscuits. 

Place your biscuits on the parchment paper on the tray. If you're using the heavy cream, take your pastry brush and brush the top of each biscuit. Place into the oven and bake for 14-16 minutes or until the tops are light golden. 

Enjoy them warm with butter!! Delicious! Xo


Charlie's first bite was amazing to witness!! 

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