Fluffy maple biscuits
By Tali Simon | January 20, 2012
I was lying in bed the other night, thinking about biscuits. Specifically, about using up the milk before it expired by making biscuits.
The idea of biscuits was especially exciting because a big, beautiful bottle of maple syrup had just arrived in the mail from cousins of mine in New Jersey.
Maple syrup that is, oh, just one million times better than the cheap imitation I would buy myself.
As I drifted off to sleep, thinking about topping fresh biscuits with the maple syrup, an idea occurred to me. Why not infuse the biscuits with maple goodness from the inside? Why not add it to the batter and drizzle it on top?
And so I did.
The result was wonderful. Light, fluffy biscuits with a hint of maple. Topped with a little pat of butter and more syrup. You know, just to make sure you get the full maple experience.
They’re easy to make and (aside from the syrup) are made entirely from pantry items. Which means you should go make these right now.
Oh, right, it’s Friday. Well, you should make these on Sunday. Or motsei Shabbos. I won’t tell.
Photo notes: I rolled my dough out too much, and ended up with several too-thin biscuit circles. You might notice in the photos that I tried to remedy this by baking these one on top of the other. (Didn’t work. They baked just fine, but as two separate, still thin, biscuits. Learn from my mistake!)
(BDM -- before drizzling maple)
Directions 1. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Add butter pieces and cut them into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. You can do this (a) with a fork and a little elbow grease, (b) with an immersion blender, though a bit will fly out of the bowl if the sides aren’t high enough, or (c) in a food processor fitted with the knife blade. 2. Add milk and maple syrup. Mix and knead until you get a soft, sticky dough. (You can also use the processor for this, but because I’ve had bad luck with that, I did it by hand. Not hard.) 3. On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough until 1 inch thick (your rolling pin should also be floured). Using a drinking glass dipped in flour, cut biscuits out of the dough. Roll the scraps out, cut more biscuits, and repeat until all the dough is used. 4. Transfer biscuit rounds to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and stick in the fridge for an hour. (This is supposed to help the biscuits bake up nice and tall. Mine weren’t especially tall, but they might have been even less so without the refrigeration). 5. Towards the end of the hour, preheat oven to 425 F/220 C. Once that hour is up, brush the biscuit tops with melted butter. Bake 14 minutes, or until they just begin to turn golden. Serve fresh from the oven (yes! do this!) or warmed up, topped with butter and maple syrup.
Adapted from 17 and Baking
Yield: 6-9 biscuits
8 Comments
Laura on January 22, 2012 at 7:25 am.
Love the idea of maple syrup in biscuits . . . (and those twisted handle forks are really, really nice, too).
Tali Simon on January 22, 2012 at 9:10 am.
I mentally thank my mother for those all the time!
Miriam @ Overtime Cook on January 23, 2012 at 6:18 am.
I have been meaning to try biscuits- maple biscuits sound amazing. Yours are making me drool!
Irene Saiger on January 24, 2012 at 4:35 am.
These look delicious! I love the addition of maple syrup.
Irene
Yiska Ben Avraham on July 9, 2012 at 7:03 pm.
I have found one brand of parchment paper that says it’s good up to 180, and another till 200. Once I saw the edges brown. Do you have Super Deluxe Paper or a merciful oven, or will nothing happen?
In hopes of being able to wait the hour of the refrigerating,
Yiska
Tali Simon on July 9, 2012 at 8:40 pm.
My paper says it’s okay up to 200 C, but I’ve never checked that before and I’ve never had a problem. Sometimes the paper turns kind of brown (especially if I reuse the same sheet), but it’s never burned…
…except for that one time I made lentil pate in a toaster oven, and the parchment paper touched the oven ceiling and caught on fire. Don’t remind me.
Yiska Ben Avraham on March 18, 2013 at 9:29 am.
Using up the last of my flour…my experience with these has been that what makes the difference in height is the thickness of the dough rather than the refrigeration.
Tali Simon on March 18, 2013 at 11:05 am.
The thickness of the dough is definitely crucial.