We are making the fluffiest and most delicious
cheddar bacon biscuits that we are going to spread with maple butter. Today, we're going
to revisit an old episode, or an old recipe, which are my flaky biscuits. And honestly, they're
the best biscuits, they're easy, they're simple, they're delicious. I am not going to be using
self-rising flour, I'm making my own self-rising flour, which is just flour and leveling
agents, but these biscuits are insanely good. I'm going to add some crispy bacon and
sharp cheddar and some deliciously green, yummy green onions, or you can also use some, I
was going to say shallots, but I meant to say, I can't think of the word, chives. That's what
I meant to say, you can use chives as well, and it's they're delicious. They're very very
good slathered with maple butter, oh my goodness gracious, you're going to go nuts. What I'm doing
here, is I'm just cooking some bacon that I have finely diced, and what I find the easiest thing
to do is, to take your bacon and when you buy a whole pack of bacon, I never use a whole pack in
one go, I go ahead and pop it into the freezer, and then every time I need a slice of bacon, you
actually cut - I'm going to show you, this is a, it's a helpful hint, it's a helpful tip, I should
say. Any time I need a slice of bacon, you just cut one about 1/4 inch slice that way, and then
you have the equivalent to one slice of bacon. If you need it crumbled, if not just peel
it and use one slice at a time. If you want to use it that way, but it's helpful for me
because I never get to use an entire thing, an entire thing of bacon in one go. While
that crisps up, I'm going to go ahead and grate some really sharp cheddar, you can use
yellow, white, you can also use pepper jack, you could use really any cheese that you
like. I always think cheddar, some bacon and scallions just go together really well think like
topping on a baked potato type of vibe uh they go together really well, so that's why I'm going this
route but you can really use whatever you like. In my large bowl, I've got some all-purpose
flour, a tiny bit of sugar, which I know is controversial, I do feel like I like the balance
and I also like that it allows my biscuits to just develop a really beautiful color. Baking powder,
baking soda and salt. Give that a quick mix, you can do this in a food processor if you want
to, I tend to think when you make biscuits it's better to do it by hand to avoid over-mixing
because you don't want to melt that butter, you want that cold butter to remain as cold as
possible, and I'm just using a pastry cutter, you can also just do this with your fingers or you
can use a fork. And I'm just getting in there and I am just cutting that butter as small as I can
without melting it. What I'm trying to do is, I'm trying to avoid using my hands as much
as possible because your hands hold heat, and so you as you mix this more and more by
hand, you melt that butter more and more, and that's, you'll run the risk of not getting
a really flaky biscuit if you overwork it. So just come in here, and if you cut your butter
into small enough pieces, you won't have to do this for very long, you can see that, that just
took me less than a minute and it's exactly where I want it. So now at this point, I'm going
to go ahead and add my buttermilk. I would say you can do this with a buttermilk substitute
which would be taking whole milk and just adding a splash of vinegar or a lemon, I don't think
that that works the same, that does work well in other baked goods, say if you're making a cake or
anything like that where it calls for buttermilk, or muffins, I think when it comes to biscuits,
you have to use the real thing. I think a lot of it has to do with the right acidity because
one, scientifically, when that mixes with the baking soda and the baking powder, you you get a
really great lift because there's no egg in here, and also I think the texture is very different,
it's much thicker, it's just - it's almost like the thickness of yogurt. And that's what you're
looking for. And I just start by hand, well, just using a fork before I go in with my hands.
Just to gather it into a shaggy dough, and then we're going to add the shredded cheddar, the
cooked and cooled bacon, and chopped scallions. Whoa, add your cheese and scallions, add
your cold bacon, don't add hot bacon, because again, you'll melt that butter,
and that's just not what we're going for, Give that a quick mix before dumping it on your
surface, you can also just do it like that, but I find that on your work surface just works
a little bit better. Avoid adding any additional flour just yet, and you're going to do your best
to not overwork this but just pull it together. If you're going to use any tool to
help you bring your dough together, let it be a bench scraper. It's like the perfect
job to lift everything off of your work surface and push it into itself, and I also want
you to see the butter is still in there, so I'm trying to work this as little as
possible. You see the butter pieces right there? Right there? Really important, and then
what I like to do, to create even more flakiness, I cut this down the middle, place it
on top and push it down, and if there's any stragglers just push them in there and
again, don't overwork it if you can help it. That might look straggly a bit, but that is fine,
and then I'm going to do that one more time, and that is creating lots of pockets for
possible goodness of flaky deliciousness, and this is pretty much it. At
this point I'm not going to pull it apart or anything else any further,
look how beautiful it came together. Everything pretty much got absorbed, this is
where I want it. I want you to see the interior, and I'm going to go ahead and
wrap this with some plastic wrap, and pop it into the fridge for
a bit to get a nice and cold. My dough has been in the fridge about an hour, I
have my oven preheated to 400F, I've got a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, you can also
make these at a cast iron skillet, the only thing I'll say is if you're going to do that, just make
sure you give them some space because they do need space to rise. Because if they all touch, they
won't rise as much, and we want a flaky biscuit, you know, this is looking perfect. I'm going to
very lightly dust my work surface, not heavily, you can see it's really sort of ? You can see the
bits of butter everywhere throughout the dough, that is a really beautiful thing to see. You
see that that's what you want to see. A little sprinkle on top, you could probably just do this
with your hands, but again your hands are warm, so it's just easier to use a rolling pin and just
dust it with flour to keep it from sticking every now and then, and again and we're just going
to roll this out to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Ideally you want it sort of a a mix
between 1/2 inch and 3/4 of an inch, and that looks perfect. So now you have
choices, because life is full of them. You can go with a big daddy of a three and
a quarter inch biscuit cutter if you have a three inch exact, use that, or you can
do with a 2-3/4 inch. The choice is yours. I'm going to go with a 3 inch
because go big or go home, right? These are going to be gorgeous,
darling, gorgeous. Beautiful, and then when you are done cutting these
out, just regroup the dough, and just roll it as best you can without warming it up too
much. That's like perfect, one right there. Biscuits look good I got a couple of really big
ones and then I did a few smaller ones and these were, you can tell, these were the ones that
I regrouped once I cut them out initially, so I'm just taking a little bit of buttermilk,
and I like to just brush the tops. I feel like it gives them really beautiful color, and
these are going to go into my preheated oven at three - nope, 400F for between 10
and 15 minutes, somewhere in between there. My biscuits literally just came out, and look how
gorgeous they look, oh my gosh they're piping hot. Before we move on to those, let's make a maple
butter. All you need for that is softened butter, and then the amount of maple syrup to taste. So
I always like to do half the amount of butter to maple syrup. So there's three tablespoons of
butter there, so you want about a tablespoon and a half of maple syrup, and you're just going
to mix it together and then you're going to get the best of all worlds, and it's just - mix it
really good, it's ugly, but mix it real good, you know, and then you can keep it in those
like really fancy butter crocks if you want. The combination of the buttery sweetness
with that bacon cheddar, I'll go to the, well I'll show you this one because it's really
this - these are the ones that, you know what, these are the ones I I re-folded, so I just want
to give you a proper experience. Look at them, look at that flakiness, you see that? It's
just insane, they just came out of the oven, so they're very, very hot, as you can
tell, but if you can resist a hot biscuit, we can't be friends. We can't be friends! Slather
it with that maple butter, it smells insane. Insane. Listen, I got nothing to say. It's like
the best thing I ever ate. You're going to flip over these. They are so good, there
are no words. All the flavors are on point. The biscuit itself is so light, perfection. That
sweetness from the maple butter completes it. It is next level. Go to LauraintheKitchen.com
to get the recipe, you have to make these, please make them this weekend.
It would be great for a brunch, these as the base to like biscuits and gravy.
Hold on to me because I would not survive. Go get the recipe, make them, you will love
them. I will see you in the next one, Bye!
