Buttermilk Biscuits and Gravy

Some of my rediscovered treats in the freezer are some buttermilk biscuits. Biscuits are something I’ve never even thought about trying to make, but with all of my leftover buttermilk I decided to give it a go after being inspired by a picture on foodgawker. I didn’t care for the recipe that was connected with the picture because it called for bacon and chives, and I wanted something simple and more versatile. I searched the internet for recipes. I went with the first recipe from my search, and made a few minor changes. First, I used whole wheat pastry flour since that is what I pretty much exclusively use for baking and all I had around the apartment. I added a little extra flour as per the recommendation of this website. The buttermilk I used was also a lowfat buttermilk, so that may have had an effect on the finished product as well.

As much as I bake cookies, I don’t own any cookie cutters, which sometimes limits what recipes I can make. As a makeshift cookie cutter for this recipe, I used a small water glass to cut my biscuits. The edes didn’t cut nearly as nicely as if I had used a cookie cutter with sharp edges, but the glass worked well enough.

After coming out of the oven, my biscuits were not nearly as flaky as I would have hoped and texture-wise, they were denser than that of a traditional buttermilk biscuit. I’m sure these issues were the result of my ingredient substitutions and maybe due to over handling, which the recipe warned against. Learning the perfect length of time to handle will take some practice to perfect. Flavor wise they were pretty tasty and complimented both sweet and savory toppings and breakfast and dinner dishes. For dinner a few weeks back, we ate the biscuits with a tasty beer macaroni and cheese. For breakfast one morning we covered then with tayberry jam alongside scrambled eggs. We also made egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches with them one day. This morning I covered them with (healthy) [sausage gravy]((http://recipes.prevention.com/Recipe/sausage-gravy-and-biscuits.aspx) to make biscuits and gravy.

I'm totally a 'sweets for breakfast' kind of person, so biscuits and gravy are not something I eat very often. But every once in awhile they really hit the spot. Dustin had never had them before but said, “I can see why people eat this.” We served the dish with a side of turkey bacon (although Bonnie ended up eating more bacon than we did because her begging face was so cute) and coffee, and had a nice hearty Southern breakfast.