Friday, July 2, 2010

Spicy Dill Biscuits

Have you ever tried a recipe from a book and it turned out to be a disaster? So far, I hadn't. In the past 5+ years of baking with yeast has made me pretty good at gauging the recipe when I see one. Try baking something along with working and watching two kids at the same time sometimes. Anything can go wrong. On the top of it, my 5 year old who doesn't have preschool now wants to pour, measure, stir and even roll the dough now.

I wanted to try a biscuit recipe from a book that I had collected 'The Southern Heritage - Breads Cookbook' by Taste of Home and Gardens. That was a simple baking powder biscuits with yeast in it. I wanted to convert it into a spicy biscuit with dill in it. When I read the recipe, I could make out that the liquid is too much for the amount of flour called for. I thought I'll use what is needed and not the entire liquid. There comes my kid who wants to pour when mommy is mixing the dough and she pours the whole thing and goes "Oops". I had to add more flour to get workable dough and proceed with the recipe. It tasted great so no complaints about that.

Point to note: not all the recipes that are printed in a book are perfect. Don't they test the recipe before publishing?

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 cups and more for dusting and rolling
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Buttermilk - 3/4 cup (1/2 cup yogurt + 1/4 cup water is what I used)
Warm water - 1/4 cup
Dry yeast - 1 package or 2 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 2 tsp
Shortening - 3 TBSP
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Green chillies - 6 - 7 chopped finely
Dill - chopped finely about 1/4 - 1/3 cup

Milk - little for brushing
Butter - melted for brushing the biscuits after baking (optional)

Method:
In a bowl, mix warm water, sugar and yeast. Let it sit for about 5 - 10 minutes. In another bowl, mix flours, salt, baking powder. Cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry blender till it resembles coarse meal. It won't be all over coarse meal consistency since fat is so less. Don't worry about that. When the yeast is frothy, add the flour mixture to it and slowly start mixing it. Pour in the butter milk and add chopped green chillies and dill and mix. Knead only 4 - 5 times. Dump the dough on to lightly floured surface and roll about 1/4" thick. Cut with biscuit cutter or a cookie cutter. Place on the cookie sheet or baking sheet lined with parchment. Make sure there is 2" space between the biscuits. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour.
Toward the end of rise period, preheat the oven to 450 F. Brush the top of the biscuits with milk. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. Your baking time might vary depending on your oven and how thick you have rolled the dough. It also depends on the baking sheet you have used. The sheets that were lined with parchment didn't brown too much compared to the ones that I had not lined with parchment paper. Keep an eye on them. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. Serve as a snack or as breakfast with some butter.

Variations:
You could add some minced onions, garlic and chopped cilantro instead of dill. You could make them a sweeter version by adding raisins and more sugar to taste.
These biscuits are 'yeastspotted'.


Happy Baking!!
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15 comments:

  1. A lot of books have failed me.. I just label the recipe so that I don't remake it :)

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  2. Yeah, its so disappointing when u get undesirable results for a recipe.
    And I know too well about baking with 2 kids around, haha!! My daughter behaves like a terrorist when I am baking and am totally terrified of her putting her hand in the cream or worse throwing eggshells in the eggs when I am beating them:-)))

    Biscuits look so good!!

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  3. They look so wonderful and melting in the mouth kind of biscuits. I love buttermilk biscuits, will surely use yours as a guide and make myself some :)

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  4. Crunch Crunch... These must be really a flavorful biscuits.. i would love to have it with a cup of Chai.

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  5. Woderful unique biscuits.They look really tasty.

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  6. Definitely a flavourful biscuits, looks scrumptious.

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  7. Woww wat a mouthwatering biscuits, looks fantastic .......

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  8. thanks a lot for this recipe as i was searching to prepare with Dill leaves.. all I knew was dhall, sabji and a new recipe - chutney.. will try this out soon!!!

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  9. Beautiful recipes and great blog. Nice to be here. Best wishes.

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  10. I like the idea of putting dill in biscuits... Yours look delicious.
    Regarding the books, sadly, I agree with Rachel... Had so many disappointments when following word by word some recipes...That's probably why I always do my little changes!!

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  11. Hahaha....in my kitchen it's a regular, most of the time little extra flour or little extra liquids save my day.....he says why don't u bake when kids are sleeping but in that case I might have to bake in the middle of night...lol...

    btw bisuits came out good....never baked biscuit with the yeast...

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  12. Wow! Dill biscuits look so yum! I'm tempted to try this out soon....

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  13. Can i use only APF here? how much liquid would that take? Also can doneness be checked with a thermometer?

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  14. Suma,
    Sure. all APF was what was written in the book. Start with just 1/2 cup of buttermilk and add more if needed. I didn't test the temperature and record it, so don't know, but it should be golden brown and nicely done. These were a bit soft not like the biscuits we get in Indian bakeries.

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