Flax Seed Biscuits
350° F / 180° C for 10 minutes
Makes approximately 48 biscuits
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup flax seeds
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
Cream butter and sugars
Add eggs and vanilla
Beat together and blend well
Add flour, salt, baking soda and oats (mix well)
Blend in seeds
Drop small round dessert spoon size amounts on to an ungreased baking sheet
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden.
Cool on a wire rack, and store in an airtight container.
Shrewsbury Biscuits
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
½ c. sugar
2 egg yolks
1 ½ c. all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon
1/3 c. currants
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease two large baking sheets. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and beat well. Stir in the flour, salt, lemon zest and currants. Mix at medium speed until you have a fairly firm dough. For a long time, it will look like breadcrumbs, but continue mixing until it all clings together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly. Roll out to about ¼” thick. Cut into rounds with a 2-2 ½” fluted cutter and place on the baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes until firm and light brown at the edges. Makes about 30 cookies.
Quick Cream Biscuits
Time: 10 minutes to make, 15 minutes to bake
A one bowl dump and stir affair, cream biscuits are the ultimate first-thing, last-minute option–perfect for scantily clad beach house kitchens or when you want to bake, but don’t feel like hauling out the heavy machinery. The tenderizing properties normally given to butter in a biscuit recipe are here left to the devices of heavy cream (slimmed down with milk to keep the crumb light). Light they are, though the texture of a cream biscuit is cakey-er than traditional "lardy" biscuits. These have a crisp surface patina and a warm nuttiness on the palate.
Equipment Mise en Place
For this recipe you will need a large mixing bowl, a rubber spatula, a rolling pin, a 2-inch biscuit cutter, some parchment paper and a sheetpan.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups (13.75 ounces) Anson Mills Colonial Whole Grain Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
Baking Remarks
Flour milled from heirloom grains absorbs liquid more slowly than commercial processed flour. Because this dough may feel wet at first, it is prudent to let it rest in the bowl for 5 minutes before rolling it out.
Work with this dough lightly and quickly. Use as little flour as possible to roll, and roll it but twice. Excess flour and over-handling make biscuits tough.
Directions
1. Adjust the racks to the lower and upper-middle positions and heat the oven to 450º F. Line a sheetpan with parchment and set it aside.
2. Turn the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and toss to combine. Make a well in the center and pour cream and milk into it. Blend lightly with a rubber spatula until the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. Do not overwork. The dough will be wet and heavy. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll or pat it out to a 1-inch thickness. Dip a 2-inch biscuit cutter in flour, stamp out 5 biscuits, and place them on the sheetpan. Press the dough back into one piece, roll it lightly to smooth and resume cutting biscuits until the dough is gone. There should be 9 or 10 biscuits.
4. Bake the biscuits on the lowest rack until they are nicely risen and deep golden brown on the bottoms, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer the sheetpan to the upper rack and bake to brown the tops, 6 to 8 minutes more. Remove them from the oven and serve them hot with plenty of sweet butter and honey or jelly.
Makes 9 or 10.