When it comes to the kitchen, I am definitely a throw caution to the wind kind of girl. A little of this, a bit of that, give me a curry, sauce, or soup to make, and I delight in the creative possibilities.
Enter baking. For someone who grew up baking all sorts of cookies with my mother at home and who has fond memories of grating potatoes for potato rolls with my nana, I have somehow become terrified of baking. Maybe the fear comes from the few times I decided to forego an important ingredient like baking powder. Maybe it’s the time that I dreamt up my own recipe for almond butter shortbread, the results something only I would eat. I am not sure exactly where my growing fear of flour came from, but this past weekend I decided to face it.
With almost 3/4 of a container of buttermilk left from my chilled avocado soup, it came to me that I should bake buttermilk biscuits. I perused the internet for recipes, knowing that successful biscuits would depend on following a recipe all the way through, and I finally settled on a recipe from Tyler Florence. Of course, I had to change it up a little, and I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose and butter instead of shortening.
While I was definitely nervous and careful to read every step of the recipe, I had fun mixing everything together with my hands, dropping little blobs of dough on to a cookie sheet, and smelling the delicious, buttery aromas as they emanated from the oven.
The final result? A little drier and less flaky than any biscuits I have ever had, which I think might be the result of the whole wheat flour. They certainly looked and tasted more like scones, but they tasted good.
Especially topped with Trader Joe’s lemon curd or honey and Kerrygold.
I look forward to baking again and hopefully to getting to a point where I am confident enough to bake for friends and family. This September I am attending a baking class at King Arthur Flour, and I am really excited to see what a professional has to share with us!
Are you a baker? If so, what is your favorite thing to make?
