Mystery Biscuits

 Mystery Biscuits

    I love the community/organization cookbooks in which members of the community or organization submit recipes. I have a copy of the Richardson Citizen Fire Academy Firehouse & Friends Favorite Recipes cookbook, published in 2009.  This recipe was submitted by Alicia M. The "mystery" ingredient is mayonnaise, which provides the fat in the recipe. This recipe was very, easy. The biscuits don't raise much during baking; they come out as nice "pillowy" biscuits. They are yummy and I enjoyed a couple with butter at dinner tonight. Give these simple biscuits a try!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup milk

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.   Stir in the sugar, milk and mayonnaise, ensuring the batter is thoroughly combined. Drop by rounded spoonfuls (I used a large soup spoon) onto a greased cookie sheet or fill 12 muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until slightly browned on top. 

Mystery Biscuits

Week 46 - Daricraft Biscuits

 Dari-craft Biscuits

Week 46 of 52

Bread #7

    With only four recipes left (Entree Meat/Fish, Dessert, Entree Vegetarian and Appetizer), plus the third drink, I can't believe I'm coming to the end of this Fifty-Two In Twenty-Two project.  I've really enjoyed this project and have decided that I will have another recipe project next year. I'll let you all know what that will be, soon.  This recipe is in a 1945 recipe booklet produced by "Producers Creamery Company". The brand of milk was Daricraft. I've not been good at making biscuits, so I thought I'd try making them (you need to be able to do basic recipes well) and long story short, although they tasted good, they were not fluffy biscuits. I'm pretty sure it was because I rolled the dough too thin. I also realized after the fact, that Daricraft is evaporated milk. I used regular milk. I enjoyed my thin little biscuits with butter and bacon jam, with some eggs. Although they were thin, they'd be good with sausage gravy or any other way pretty much that you'd enjoy biscuits.  I do plan to try these again and hopefully I don't make them too thin. I'll also try using evaporated milk and see if that also makes a difference.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons shortening

1/3 cup Daricraft (evaporated milk) 

1/3 cup water

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Into a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in shortening. Combine the evaporated milk and water and add slowly to the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough can be handled, but is still soft. Knead quickly on a floured board and roll to 1/2 or 3/4 inch thickness. Cut biscuits out, placing on a baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. I managed to get 12 biscuits My apologies, I don't know how big the biscuit cutter I used was. That said, you can use whichever size you like.

"Daricraft" Biscuits

Bacon, Eggs and Biscuits

Sweet Potato Biscuits

 Sweet Potato Biscuits

    A short but sweet post.  Mix all the below dry ingredients and then cut in shortening until it is crumbly. Mix egg, sweet potato and milk together and add all together, to the dry ingredients. Stir until dough clings together and then knead gently, 10-12 times on a lightly floured board. Roll or pat the dough to a 1/2 inch thickness and use a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter to cut 8 biscuits.  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 425 degrees for 10-12 minutes. 

    When I made these biscuits, I had to add a little extra flour, because the dough was pretty sticky. I also made them thinner than recommended at 1/4 inch (oops) and I didn't have a large biscuit cutter. It turned out kinda nice though.  I had 12 smaller, thinner, more "fun sized" biscuits.  They tasted really good and I was happy with them.  

    The recipe comes from The Better Homes & Gardens "All Time Favorite Recipes" published in 1979. 

Ingredients:

1 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

2 Teaspoons Brown Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/3 Cup Shortening

1 Beaten Egg

1/2 Cup Mashed Cooked Sweet Potato

2 Tablespoons Milk

 

Better Homes & Gardens - All-Time Favorite Recipes

The biscuits (It's bad lighting; they were as yellow as they look here).

    

Lemonchick's Cheesy Garlic Biscuit Balls

 Lemonchick's Cheesy Garlic Biscuit Balls

    This is my recipe. I created it and they turned out exactly how I'd hoped they would.  They really aren't "balls" when they're baked, but I like the name, so that is what I'm calling them. I had bought ingredients to make a recipe called "Cheese Biscuit Loaf" from the 1972 printing of my Better Homes and Gardens "Jiffy Cooking" cookbook. This cookbook was originally printed in 1967. Anyhow,  on the way to work this morning, I was thinking about making the Cheese Biscuit Loaf on page 67 for dinner and was thinking about how I could maybe change it up a bit. I was specifically thinking about adding garlic, but wasn't sure what I would do.  And then, I remembered I had an unopened package of cheese curds, which I'd bought at Aldi. My a-ha moment was realizing I could probably stuff biscuits with cheese, dip them in butter and then parmesan cheese.  I love garlic and decided to add garlic to the mix and it was a good decision.  

 Ingredients:

1 can of refrigerated biscuits (8 large biscuits)

8 good pieces/chunks of cheese curds, or cheddar, or monterey jack (It's okay to add a little more or a little less)

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (I used the powdered kind, but I bet fresh, grated Parmesan would be amazing)

1 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp garlic salt

Directions:

    Pre-heat your oven to 350 and spray an 8x8 baking dish with cooking spray. Melt butter in a small pan and put on your work space, where you'll be forming the balls. Mix parmesan cheese, garlic powder and garlic salt in a small bowl and set next to the butter. I used my trusty, cutting board as my work space to form the biscuit balls on.   Open your can of refrigerated biscuits and one at a time, flatten each biscuit into a round piece. Make sure you flatten them out enough, so you can add a piece or two of cheese curd or chunk(s) of cheese. Wrap the biscuit dough around the cheese. With the seam side up, dip and roll the biscuit ball in the melted butter, give it a little shake and dip it into the parmesan/garlic mix. Roll it around in there, pushing down firmly, but not too firmly. You don't want to flatten it, you just want to coat the biscuit ball with the parmesan/garlic mix. Place your biscuit balls seam side down in your baking dish. I put three on each side and two in the middle and it worked perfectly. I also drizzled a little of the melted butter on top before placing in my oven.  

    Since I was making this up as I went along, I wasn't sure how long I should bake these. I checked how they were looking at 10 minutes. I knew 10 minutes would be too short, but I wanted to see how they looked. I checked at 20 minutes; at 25 minutes and then took them out at 27 minutes. They looked a little soft, but I let them cool a little and figured there was no way to find out how down they were exactly w/o cutting into one. I served myself one of the corner biscuit balls and cut into it with a sharp knife. And, it was perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thirty minutes bake time might be best, but just keep an eye on them, as you don't want them to burn or be hard on the outside.  

    This recipe makes eight biscuit balls, so it could serve 4 - 8 people. They're so good though (If I do say and I do), so if you have eight people, you may want to double the recipe, so everyone can have two. You just have to find a bigger pan or use two 8x8 pans. I liked the shape of the finished biscuit balls, using the 8x8 pan. You could try a larger baking dish and my guess is that they would turn out fine, but will likely just look a little different.  Literally the only thing I would do differently, would be to use 1 1/2 tbsp of garlic powder. I had both butter and parmesan/garlic mix leftover, so I saved them for future use. Try using the leftover parmesan/garlic mix sprinkled over mashed potatoes or rice.  Or, just mix it right into your mashed potatoes or rice. 

Variations:

Dried red chili flakes (to taste) added to the parmesan/garlic mix

Italian Seasoning (to taste) in place of or in addition to the garlic (I'm guessing this would go really well served with a red-sauced pasta dish)

Parmesan can be used without any extra seasoning. 

    As always, feel free to let me know what you think.  I'm really, proud of this recipe and I hope you like it also. 

The finished product served with chicken breast and asparagus.

This is what I used for the cheese 'middle'. 

Parmesan & Garlic mixture

This is what you want to do.

Biscuit balls, ready to bake.

Success!!! (That dent is in that one piece, because I wanted to see how soft/done it felt)