Recipe Of The Month - Jenny's Cheddar Biscuits

Welcome to our first Recipe Of The Month!  Since I talk so much about food and since I love cooking and baking so much I thought it was about time that I started sharing some of the recipes that are favorites at Casa de la Sew Fab.   My original plan was to do a Recipe Of The Week.....and then reality hit and I started laughing at myself when I realized there was no chance of that happening on a regular basis.  But Recipe Of The Month sounds a bit more do-able, doesn't it?!


So let me introduce you to our beloved Cheddar Biscuits.  We love cheddar biscuits but I could never find a recipe that tasted quite right.  So I started playing around and this is the recipe that I "invented" after much trial and error.   We suffered through a lot of bad cheddar biscuits before hitting the biscuit jackpot!  These are soft, buttery, very cheddary and oooey, gooey good.  So let's get started (the full recipe will be at the bottom)......


You just need a few basic ingredients that you may already have in your house:  Shredded cheddar, buttermilk, flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, salt and butter.

You start by mixing together 2 cups flour, 2.5 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp sugar, 3/4 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt.  Then add 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter to the flour mixture  And yes....I realize that softened butter isn't a normal thing to use in biscuits but these are my biscuits and this is how I do it!  Mix it up with your hands until the largest bits are the size of peas and you have something that has a coarse texture - I kind of squish it through my fingers to get it to mix together.  When you're done there should be small bits of butter, big bits of butter and some areas that don't have any butter.  That's o.k.  It will all work out in the end!

 

Then you add 3 1/2 cups of sharp shredded cheddar.  Yes.....it's a lot of cheese.  You'll thank me later!  Mix it up and you end up with something that looks like this. 

Then you add 1 cup of buttermilk and mix it up until it comes together.

It will look something like this when you're done mixing.  Don't mix too long or the biscuits will be tough.  Mix it just long enough to get the dough moist and fairly uniform.

Then roll them into nice balls about 1 1/2" across (you should have about 2 dozen) and place them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.  And this is a "do as I say, not as I do" moment because I ran out of parchment paper as I was taking these photos.  They're really hard to peel off the pan without the parchment paper!

 

Bake them at 350 degrees for about 22 minutes.  Then slather with more butter and eat!  We love having these with steak, panko crusted halibut or panko crusted chicken.  And I've always thought about adding some garlic or some green onions to these but I haven't done it yet.  I'd love to hear what you have them with or if you jazz them up somehow!

Jenny's Cheddar Biscuit Recipe

2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter

3 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar

1 cup buttermilk

Mix dry ingredient together. Add butter and mix until coarse and the size of peas.  Add cheddar and mix together.  Add buttermilk and mix until just combined.  Drop dough onto parchment covered baking sheet (balls should be about 1 1/2" across).  Bake at 350 degrees for about 22 minutes.  Smother with more butter and eat!

Happy Baking,

Jenny