Showing posts sorted by date for query Scones. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Scones. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Maritime Biscuits. These delicious quick breads are not cookies. The British are very fond of calling their cookies biscuits. These delicious quick breads are not scones.
These delicious quick breads are biscuits in every sense of the North American definition of Biscuit. They are a quick bread, meant to be enjoyed as a savoury part/side dish of a meal.
But they are also quite different even when you are talking about North American Biscuits, because these biscuits contain yeast. Not just soda and or baking powder.
These particular biscuits are very particular to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Those beautiful provinces anchored on the East Coast of my beautiful homeland, consisting of four provinces.
Newfoundland, an Island where my parents got married, also loving know as "The Rock." Nova Scotia, where I say I am from. A peninsula anchored by the Isthmus of Chebucto to mainland Canada.
New Brunwswick, the part of Canada tha Nova Scotia is anchored to, and Prince Edward Island. Island of my birth and home to Lucy Maude Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables.
That is the Maritimes in a nutshell and what I consider to be my home. No matter how far away from them I travel, or how long I am away, I consider myself a Maritimer at heart.
These Biscuits may be known by a variety of names. Angel Biscuits is one. French Biscuits is another.
My ex In-Laws lived on Prince Edward Island and we spent several weeks there in the summer months. The community they lived in, Saint Eleanors, at that time was largely populated with retired Military folk.
My FIL had been a cook in the airforce. Both he and my MIL had been born and bred on the Island so it was quite natural for them to want to return there upon retirement, to spend their golden years.
There was an old guy and his wife that lived directly across from them. The Kenny's, also an armforced retiree couple. They had Acadia ancestry, or at least Mrs. Kenny did.
Every summer when we arrived we could almost rely that within the first 24 hours Mrs Kenny would be sending over a bag of freshly baked French Biscuits as she called them, or Maritime Biscuits as is their proper name.
We
were always thrilled to get them and most grateful. I used to visit
Mrs Kenny a couple of times during our visit to the Island. She was a
very short and stout woman with silver hair, a great sense of humour
and a heart of gold.
Mr Kenny was also kind and quite a character! One summer my children had picked strawberries and my FIL had sent them up at a small table at the end of the driveway so they could earn a bit of spending money selling them to the neighbours.
Mr Kenny bought several boxes of them and them gave them back to the children so they could sell them all over again. That was just his way. Kind, kind . . .
Skunks used to be a huge problem on the Island. They probably still are. I remember one year Mr Kenny had made a skunk trap for his front yard, with every intention of putting waste to whatever skunk he captured.
It became somewhat of a joke amongst the male retirees, this skunk trap. Every morning Mr Kenny would inspect his trap and come up empty.
So one night the other retired fellows decided they would stick a stuffed teddy bear in the trap to get a rise out of him. Sure enough, next morning with all of the excitement he could muster, Mr Kenny put laid waste to . . . the teddy bear.
Filled that teddy bear full of buckshot he did. It was the talk of the neighborhood for years and years. Oh but they didn't all get half get bit of a rise out of that one! I don't think he was ever able to live it down. He was destined to be Claude, teddy bear killer for year and years. Good times!
One day I came across this recipe in a community cookbook for Maritime Biscuits. They sounded like to be exactly the same as the ones Mrs Kenny made.
I had to write the recipe down. It went into my Big Blue Binder, like all the good recipes do. And I have been enjoying them ever since.
They have a beautiful flaky texture, like any good biscuit, and a nice rise. But they rise a bit like a dinner roll would.
Not precisely up, and somewhat out. They are lovely and light as air. As light as an angel's wings some might say!
The dough can be somewhat sticky. Try hard not to knead too much flour back into them when you are patting them out ready to cut. Just be generous with the flour on the bottom and somewhat generous with the flour on top.
I dip my cutter into flour with every biscuit I cut so that it doesn't stick. I use a 3 inch round sharp cutter,straight edged.
Like any biscuit, do not twist them as you are cutting them. A strong, straight up and down cut will do the trick. You will need a spatula to lift them onto the baking sheet.
Do leave plenty of space between them for them to spread and rise. Unless you are not bothered by soft sided biscuits. We like our sides crisp, like our bacon.
If there is one downside to these biscuits it would have to be that they really are best eaten on the day. It is the same with any bread that contains yeast.
You can however, nicely refresh them the next day in a slow oven. You can also freeze them, properly wrapped for several months if need be.
These are wonderful served warm, not long out of the oven. Lovely with cold butter and preserves, or even peanut butter.
They are fantastic served with soups or salads. They are also fantastic served with thick stews that have plenty of gravy to be mopped up. These biscuits are perfect at mopping up.
To be honest, I enjoy them with anything and everything. Yes, I am a carboholic. Through and through.
Don't be tempted to use butter in place of the shortening. I have never seen or tasted these made with anything else, except perhaps lard, which is what they would have used in the early pioneer days.
They would have also enjoyed them spread with butter and drizzled with sticky sweet molasses. Back home in the Maritimes the molasses jug holds pride of place on the dinner table.
Every meal, every day, every week of the year. Its just the way we're made.
Maritime Biscuits
Yield: 12 Large Biscuits (3-inch)
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 20 Mininactive time: 10 Mintotal time: 45 Min
These lovely light puffs of air are a cross between a dinner roll and a baking powder biscuit! Delicious!
Ingredients:
For the yeast sponge:
- 1/4 cup (60ml) warm water
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1 TBS regular yeast
For the Biscuits:
- 2 1/2 cups flour (350g) plain all purpose flour
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1/2 tsp soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (110g) vegetable shortening
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
- Mix the sugar, warm water and yeast together in a cup and leave to dissolve until foamy and double in size.
- Warm the buttermilk slightly to lukewarm.
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the soda and baking powder. Stir in the salt and sugar. Drop in the shortening and cut it in using a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs, with some larger bits and more smaller bits.
- Add the yeast mixture to the warm buttermilk and then add this all at once to the flour mixture. Mix well and turn out onto a generously floured board. Knead lightly for a couple of turns. Pat out to a round about 1 inch in thickness.
- Using a sharp 3 inch cutter, stamp out rounds and place them well spaced apart on the baking sheets. Re pat and cut the scraps until you have used all the dough, again placing them well spaced on the baking sheets.
- Leave to rise for about 10 minutes.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minute to 20 minutes until golden brown on tops and bottoms and well risen. Lift off to cool on a wire cooling rack.
- Delicious served warm with cold butter and honey or jam.
Look at that lovely texture. A true cross between a biscuit and a bread. Beautiful.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Usually at the weekend I like to bake us something that we can enjoy for breakfast or with a hot drink. I do bake sweet things too.
I am not sure why I always bake at the weekend. I suppose it is a habit that started when I was working full time. I did not really have much time during the week to bake us anything special. We were lucky I managed to get dinner done!
The recipe I am sharing with you today for Sugar-Free Banana Nut Muffins has been adapted from a cookbook of mine entitled Bread for Breakfast by Beth Hensperger.
It is filled with lots of baked Breakfast options, including muffins, loaves (both sweet and savoury, quick and yeasted), Scones, Biscuits, cornbreads, etc.
There are also a sections on coffee cakes and holiday bakes, pancakes and waffles, as well as butters, jams and fruit and cheese spreads.
Its not an overly large book, but it is filled with quite a few goodies. Old fashioned as well as the new. Its one of my favourite breakfast baking books.
I was intrigued by this Banana Muffin recipe because it was sugar free. These days we have all been brainwashed by popular coffee spots and warehouse stores into think that a muffin is supposed to a small cake. Similar to a cupcake but without frosting!
As a consequence, our tastebuds have come to expect that every muffin we eat should be stogged full of sugar in one form or another. Ultra sweet, containing candy like chocolate chips and the like.
Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a chocolate chip muffin. I adore them myself. But a muffin should be a muffin and not a little cake. Know what I mean.
This muffin recipe boasts no sugar at all. Nada. Zip. Zero sugar. Instead it relies upon the sweetness of the fruit to bring sweet into the mix. In this case bananas.
Bananas are quite sweet fruit and the longer you allow them to ripen the sweeter they get. The best bananas for baking are ones which are heavily speckled with brown, maybe even to the point where you think they are past it.
But they are not past it. They are perfect and sweet and ready to be baked into muffins and loaves, cookies, cakes, etc.
These are lovely and moist. There is buttermilk in the batter. I love bakes with buttermilk. Buttermilk adds a special lightness and tenderness to bakes such as this.
It is an acid as well, so it helps to create a nice lift. You always need to add bicarbonate of soda to a bake using something acidic like buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, etc.
When baking soda is combined with the lactic acids of buttermilk, the acid neutralizes the metallic taste of sodium carbonate, and the batter will bubble and expand.
This is why when you are baking something with buttermilk and soda in it you need to get your bake into the oven as quickly as possible. This is to help take advantage of that chemical reaction.
The heat of the oven will immediately increase the effects of that action giving you a nice tall and light bake. If you wait too long to put your bakes into the oven you will risk losing that effect, and in fact you will decrease the action of the buttermilk and the soda as well.
So speed is the key factor here. Make sure you have your pan greased and everything ready to go as soon as you mix the wet and dry ingredients together!
So, no sugar. These muffins have no sugar whatsoever. I didn't mind. The end result was not sweet at all actually. It was just right. Just what I would expect a true muffin to taste like.
If you want sweet, you will have to add a bit of sugar into the mix. I wouldn't think you would need a lot actually, maybe only 1 or 2 TBS of either caster sugar or soft light brown sugar.
We enjoyed them just as they were, served warm with some butter for spreading on top. Look at the texture of these beauties. I call that perfection.
The recipe only makes 9 muffins. That's another thing I liked about the recipe. Nine muffins is a perfectly reasonable amount. They also freeze really well according to the recipe. Up to three months in an airtight container.
Baking things like this at the weekend means I also get to use my roll cover. My good friend Monique sent this sweet embroidered roll cover to me last year, or possibly even the year before, for my Birthday.
Every time I use it I cannot help but think of her, and her many kindnesses to me through the years. Meeting good and kind people is one of the blessings you gain from being a member of the blogging community.
Like is attracted to like. These sweet friendships are one of the things I love most about blogging. That sense of community. Oh sure there is the odd nasty person, or troll as they are called, but the good ones far outweigh them.
There are some pecans in these muffins. Chopped pecans. I always like to toast my nuts before baking with them. It doesn't take much of an effort. It only takes a few minutes on a dry baking sheet in a hot oven.
They are done when they start to smell all nice and nutty. Do watch them however, as they can go from toasty to burnt in milliseconds. Five to eight minutes at 200*C/400*F will do the trick.
You could add chocolate chips. Just saying. I like semi-sweet chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips. Both are quite nice in banana muffins. You could even add some berries. Blueberries would be nice.
If you rely on the sweetness of your muffin to come from the sweetness of the banana you really don't have to feel guilty about spreading them with butter while hot, and maybe even drizzling them with a bit of honey if you can tolerate honey.
As a diabetic, honey sends my sugar levels sky-rocketing. Even just a little bit on the tip of my tongue. Its a shame really because I have always loved honey.
Anyways, if you are looking for a nice, moist and not overly sweet muffin, with plenty of toasty nut crunch, then you have come to the right place! These fit the bill on all counts!
Sugar-Free Banana Nut Muffins
Yield: Makes 9 Muffins
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 25 Mininactive time: 5 Mintotal time: 40 Min
This is an interesting muffin adapted from a cookery book by Beth Henshberger entitled Bread for Breakfast. This is a lovely moist muffin that truly is not too sweet, relying only on the sweetness of the banana. I think this is what muffins were originally intended to be. Breads and not Cake.
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups (210g) plain flour
- 1/2 cup (70g)whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (60g) chopped toasted pecan nuts
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
- 2 large free range eggs
- 120ml (1/2 cup) canola oil
- 2 medium sized ripe bananas
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Butter a muffin tin really well, or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon. Stir in the salt. Stir in the toasted pecans.
- Beat the oil, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla together with a wire wisk to combine well. Stir in the mashed banana. Pour this mixture into the dry ingrdients and fold everything together with a plastic spatula just to combine.
- Immediately spoon into the prepared muffin tin, filling each hole to the rim.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. The muffins should be well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre of one should come out clean.
- Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack to cool.
notes:
Do not allow these to overbake. I would definitely check them at 20 minutes. If you must you can add 2 TBS of brown sugar to the wet ingredients to add a bit more sweetness. Any leftovers can be stored in an air tight container, or frozen for up to 3 months.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
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I am of the strongest opinion that one can never have such a thing as too many biscuit recipes, and by biscuit I am talking North American Biscuits, not English Biscuits, which are cookies and something completely different.
Cheddar, Bacon & Chive Biscuits are fabulously tasty, light, flakey, peppery, stogged with rich strong cheddar and are beautiful served along side of savoury things like soups, stews, salads, etc.
I will go out on a limb here and tell you they are also kinda nice spread with butter and honey, only because I have done that and they were delicious, but then again, taste is a very individual thing is it not?
I had this huge discussion on my English Kitchen Facebook stage the other day with someone who was quite irate that in an English Kitchen I would be calling Scones Biscuits. I was calling what I had made Biscuits (The Yogurt ones) because they were Biscuits, NOT Scones!
I, personally, know the difference between a Biscuit and a Scone. I am well versed in the differences between the two. I am a trained Chef good golly cheese whiz. I have had experience living and cooking on both sides of the pond.
Today I will endeavour to enlighten you with what those differences are. What you do with this knowledge is up to you. 😊 I know, I am preaching to the choir here, but there may be some who don't know and this is for them.
When it comes to mixing biscuits and scones, the methods used are pretty much indistinguishable. Both require flour and some leavening usually in the way of baking powder.
Biscuits sometimes also have baking soda in them, especially if they are using buttermilk (such as these tasty ones I am sharing with you today.)
If you are using something acidic like buttermilk or sour cream, yogurt, etc. you need a bit of soda. The soda reacts with the acid in the liquid to give you plenty of lift.
Both use some sort of fat which helps to create air pockets in them when they are baking which leads to flakiness.
With biscuits this will be vegetable shortening, lard, and sometimes butter or a combination of those things.
With scones, it is always butter, and there is always a lot more of it than you would find being used in a biscuit batter.
Biscuits for the most part contain no sugar, although you will find the rare recipe which will include at least some. My mother-in-laws recipe has a TBS of sugar in it.
Generally speaking a scone recipe will have some sugar in it, maybe even copious amounts.
Biscuits are usually brushed with butter or milk. Scones usually have an egg wash. Scones, generally speaking, will also have he addition of eggs in the liquid used. (Not always however.) Are you confused yet?
Biscuits are soft and light and flakey in texture and most often will be savoury rather than sweet. Meant to be eaten along with soups, or stews, or salads, or filled with things like ham and eggs. Breakfast biscuits are quite popular.
You will find them filled with bacon, ham or sausage and eggs and cheese at mny fast food places in North America.
Quite often you will see them split and served with sausage gravy ladled over top or creamed fish or chicken.
There is one exception to this rule and that is in the case of fruit shortcakes, whereupon they will be split and filled with mashed fruit of some kind and icecream or whipped cream.
Scones are a bit more crumbly wih a much shorter texture than Biscuits and a lot sweeter. More often than not, they are served cold and meant
to be spread with butter, jam, conserves, fruit and cream and enjoyed
with copious amounts of hot tea.
Quite often you will find that they contain fruit, either dried or fresh. And even so they will still be served cold with jam and cream. As a rule scones are never served hot or even warm.
Biscuits can have mix-ins, such as these ones today, but generally speaking the mix ins will be of the savoury variety. I have never seen a Biscuit with anything sweet added such as dried fruit or even fresh fruit.
Mix-ins are usually things like bacon, or minced ham, cheese, onions, chives, etc. pretty much always savoury, although there may be some exceptions to the rule I haven't come across!
There are some really strong basic differences between the two as well as a lot of similarities, specifically the main one being in how they are put together/mixed. But even that is not 100% standard some of the time.
Any how, I just wanted to clear the air a bit as to some of the differences between the two things. This recipe I am sharing with you today is for BISCUITS! Yay!!
And what wonderful biscuits they are. They are nice and light and flaky and filled with all sorts of lovely savoury moreish bits.
Crisp smoky bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, herby fresh chives and plenty of garlic and black pepper. They are moist and light from the use of buttermilk.
Instead of the usual shortening or lard, butter is grated into them as the fat. You will want to freeze it as it is really important that you keep the butter as cold as possible.
Usually fat will be cut into biscuits using a pastry blender or two round bladed knives (as opposed to being rubbed in with a scone.) Today it is grated in and then just stirred in with a knife.
All your flour and savoury bits are stirred together and then the butter is dropped in and then you stir in buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk, don't worry you can make the equivalent using lemon juice with full fat milk added to the same amount needed as buttermilk.
If you mix the two together, you just need to let it sit for about five minutes so that the milk will clabber. I usually end up having to do this as I have had a very difficult time getting buttermilk lately.
Just look at how nice and flaky those biscuits are and how filled with lovely tasty bits. That cheese, that bacon, the chives. So yummy!
They are delicious split and spread with cold butter. I enjoyed them with a cup of hot soup for a delicious lunch.
Oh and in all of my talking about the differences between scones and biscuits I forgot to tell you that this was another small batch recipe.
You could double it of course if you wished and they will absolutely freeze beautifully if tightly wrapped, for up to three months. Simply thaw in a microwave on high for about 30 seconds. Enjoy!
Cheddar, Bacon & Chive Biscuits
Yield: 8 Biscuits
prep time: 15 Mcook time: 15 Mtotal time: 30 M
This is a small batch recipe. These biscuits are incredibly flaky, tall and nice and buttery. Filled with lots of sharp cheddar, crisp bacon bits and fresh chives they make an excellent addition to the lunch or supper table!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (280g) plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp coarse black pepper
- 1 tsp garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
- 3 slices of crisp cooked bacon, crumbled into bits
- 60g sharp cheddar cheese grated
- 1 TBS finely chopped chives.
- 3 ounces (85g) frozen butter (6 TBS)
- 7 fluid ounces (190ml)of buttermilk
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 225*C/425*F/gas mark 7. Line a baking tray with some baking paper and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl. Stir in the cheese, chopped chives, bacon, pepper, garlic powder, and salt.
- Using the largest holes on a box grater, quickly grate the butter over top and mix in using a round bladed knife. Stir all together. Add the buttermilk and mix together. The dough will be somewhat sticky. Don't worry about that.
- Tip the dough out onto a floured board and knead lightly 3 or 4 times to bring it together. Pat out to a 1 1/2 inch thick round.
- Using a 2 1/2 to 3- inch sharp round cutter, stamp out rounds, using a straight up and down motion. Do not twist the cutter.
- Place spaced apart on the baking sheet.
- Bake for about 15 minutes until risen and golden brown. Serve warm with plenty of butter for spreading. Delicious!
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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