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!!