Daily Wahnsinn

One of my favorite brunch spots in New York is Clinton Street Baking in the Lower Eastside neighborhood. You won’t find a day when there’s not a line or a wait. The day you eat there, you’ll understand exactly why that is. Their pancakes are to die for!

Now picture my excitement when I found out that they had issued a cookbook, featuring their most popular recipes - ranging from, yes, the famous pancakes, to eggs, muffins, cakes, soups, sandwiches, Southern comfort food. And yes, biscuits.

The other day I had bought biscuit cutters and finally last weekend, I decided to give the combination of new cookbook and new baking tools a try. Below find the results!

Pictures were taken with the new camera. Look at me, all artsy!

Ingredients

Makes 6

1 CUP All-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 CUP Whole wheat flour

2 TABLESPOONS Baking powder

1 1/2 TABLESPOONS Sugar

1/4 TEASPOON Salt

3 TABLESPOONS Unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

3 TABLESPOONS Vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into small chunks

3/4 CUP Buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Place the 2 cups of flour and other dry ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.
3. Add the butter and shortening to the bowl and mix on low speed until the dough reaches a crumbly texture. The butter and shortening should be the size of peas.
4. Turn off the mixer and add the buttermilk to the bowl all at once. Mix very briefly on low speed until the dough just comes together (this should take less than 10 seconds).
5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball. Lightly knead the dough two or three times until combined.
6. You can bake the biscuits the next day. Dust a sheet pan and the top of the dough with flour and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, overnight. Then bring the dough back to room temperature.
7. Pat out the dough to a 3/4-to-1-inch thickness. Shape the dough into a rectangle, making the sides high. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out 4 biscuits. Place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dust with a sprinkling of flour. Gather the dough scraps and, using your hands, touch in the bottom of the dough so there are wrinkles, much like making a bead roll. Form the remaining dough into another rectangle with high sides and cut out 2 more biscuits.
8. Place the pan in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Halfway through the baking process, rotate the pan for even browning.
9. Serve warm with butter and jam.

Couple of notes:

• While not filed under “healthy”, these definitely file under HOMGdelicious!
• I didn’t have vegetable shortening, so I used (more) butter. This worked well. That said, you really want your butter to be chilled before you knead the dough.
•  This recipe made more than 6 biscuits. I doubled the volume and go 23 biscuits out of twice the recipe, i. e. the recipe as stated above made 11.5 biscuits for me.
• I baked the same day as making the dough. Refrigerating overnight is not mandatory.