Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits



Despite being sans traditional kitchen set up right now, baking hasn't fallen too far to the wayside. Fingers in dough is a form of stress relieving therapy for me. Even before we bought a little counter top convection oven I was grilling pita bread and pizza dough as often as I could.
This weekend we took brunch to a family across the street with a sweet little baby girl welcomed into their fold of two older sisters. Thinking of what to feed a total of 9 mouths with my grill and counter top convection oven proved to be a fun challenge. In the end, I settled for homemade granola with yogurt and berries and grilled sausage patties on flaky rosemary cheddar biscuits. Easily made, easily transportable.
The recipe is adapted from who knows where. I've kept a 3-ring binder now for 15 years of odds and end recipes with my notes in the margins. Newspaper and magazine clippings, handwritten recipes from those light bulb/improv-in-the-kitchen moments, recipes passed down from friends and family…it’s a huge hodgepodge of crazy and its one of my most treasured bits of goodness.
I have added chopped rosemary from my kitchen window herb garden, to the recipe along with a few tweaks here and there to make these a bit more billowy and flaky. They are super, super simple. I often mix the dry ingredients the night before, chop my butter and keep it wrapped in the fridge and then in the morning~ between groggy eyed sips of coffee I simply assemble, roll out, cut and bake.



Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits ~ Yields 12-14 biscuits

4 cups AP flour (I use White Lily for biscuits)
4 Tbsp. chopped dried or fresh rosemary
4 tsp. baking powder
4 tsp. sugar
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1.5 cups cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Whisk together the dry ingredients except for the chopped rosemary. Blend in the butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until the dry ingredients resemble clumped sand. Stir in the grated cheese and then dump the buttermilk into the bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until incorporated and a dough ball begins to form.
At this point, dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently a dozen times or so until it a cohesive dough ball but absolutely DO NOT over knead or else your beautiful little balls of butter will start to melt from the heat of your hands. That’s a no no.
Pat the dough (or gently roll) until it is around 1.5” in thickness. Cut the biscuits with a cutter (I use a square cutter from King Arthur Flour.)
Arrange them about 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and the biscuits are cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, split and fill with any goodies your groggy-eyed-self desires. And don’t forget to share with the neighbors….

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