Cheddar Biscuit Breakfast Sandwiches

I’ve been in a breakfast craving mood lately. We made these cheddar biscuits a while ago, and I decided I needed to share, mostly because of the delicious mustard sauce I made with them. I’m sitting here drooling just thinking about how good the stuff was. It’s so velvety and smooth and just flat-out delicious. Ok I’ll stop talking about it now.  Anyways, my biscuits came out a little thinner than I wanted so I recommend cutting these on the thicker side so they come out nice and fluffy.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more to dust for shaping
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter diced (1 1/2 sticks)
• 1 1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3/4 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk see note below)
• 1 large egg

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
• In a large bowl combine flour, cheeses, salt, baking powder and butter. Use an electric mixer with a paddle attachment if you have one, if you’re like me and don’t just use your hands, you’ll get a little arm workout in while you do this! You’ll want mix until the chunks of butter are no larger than the size of peas.
• Add the buttermilk and mix until the dough is just coming together.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough gently. Pat the dough into a large rectangle, about 1 inch thick.
• Using a 3 inch round biscuit cutter cut biscuits out and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.  Leave about an inch or two between biscuits so they can expand when baking.
• Shape remainder dough back into a rectangle and re-cut additional dough with biscuit cutter. Rolling out dough a 3rd time may make dough tough. Recommend only rolling it out twice. You should get about 10-12 biscuits.
• In a small bowl beat egg and a splash of water to create an egg wash.  Brush tops of biscuits with egg wash.
• Bake for about 20 minutes.  Time may vary depending on your oven so it’s always best to start a few minutes lower and check on them. You want them to have a nice golden color.
• These biscuits can easily be frozen and baked at a later time too.  Once you’ve cut out your biscuits place on baking pan and place in freezer. Once frozen you can transfer them to a plastic freezer bag. You will need to add additional baking time to frozen biscuits when you are ready to use them.
• We made breakfast sandwiches with these that were absolutely delicious! Or you can eat them just as they are!
• If you want to turn these into a delicious breakfast sandwich like I did, they pair perfectly with left over ham you may have around. I added a little arugula and Brad topped his with a fried egg.
• Also made this really delicious mustard sauce that is so good, you’ll literally want to put it on everything. There are a few different variations of this type of mustard sauce out there that I saw and ended up playing around with and as soon as we tasted this I knew it was perfect.

Mustard Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons dry ground mustard
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup half and half

Directions:

• Place all ingredients in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Make sure to stir often and keep an eye on it.
• Once it comes to a boil you might want to pour it through a mesh strainer to get any clumps out that may have formed.
• Pour it into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Place in fridge until it sets and cools or serve it warm.
• Seriously this stuff is so good.  Slather it on your biscuits top with ham and arugula and eat up! You might even want to dip your sandwich in it, it’s that good. This is great to serve as a sauce with ham too.

Pumpkin Parmesan Cheddar Biscuits

So, I realize I’m a little behind on posting this, being that Thanksgiving is over but I made these biscuits for a pumpkin baking contest at work and decided I had to post them here!  I don’t have a big sweet tooth, I crave more savory foods so I decided to try something other than a sweet treat for the baking contest.  I’m sure many people still have pumpkins or cans of pumpkin still sitting around waiting to be made into something delicious! These are a great substitute of your regular dinner rolls or biscuits.  I love the combination of sage and pumpkin.  I whipped up some honey butter as well to spread on these and that touch of sweetness really made these even more delicious.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 TBSP baking powder
• 1 Tsp salt
• 1 TBSP sugar
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup pure pumpkin
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter.
• 2 TBSP butter melted
• 2 TBSP finely chopped sage
• Parchment paper

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Whisk together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.  Add in parmesan, cheddar cheese and sage and mix together.
• Dice cold butter and add to dry ingredients.  You’ll have to get your hands a little messy here and mix together the butter with the dry ingredients until it starts looking like crumbs the size of peas.
• In a separate bowl mix together buttermilk and pumpkin then pour into flour mixture and work with your hands or a fork until formed into a soft dough.
• On a floured surface, roll dough out into a ball.  Press out or roll with rolling-pin into a 1/2 in thick disk. Cut out biscuits using a 2 in round cookie cutter or you can use something else round about that size if you don’t have a cookie cutter on hand.
• Transfer onto baking sheet.
• Melt 2 TBSP butter in a small bowl and brush on top of the biscuits.  Sprinkle with a little more parmesan
• Bake in oven for approximately 15 min or until golden brown on top.  Time will vary depending on your oven.

You can re-roll out the remaining dough to make additional biscuits but the more you roll it out, the less fluffy your dough will be. The recipe should make between 8-16 biscuits depending on size and how many times you roll the dough back out. Spread a little honey butter on these and you won’t want to stop eating them!

Cinnamon Buns

Oh my goodness ya’ll! I got engaged this weekend!!! I’ve been on cloud nine since Friday.  I could not be more excited or happy! I have to say, I’ve definitely been pretty side tracked at work the last two days.  All I want to do is stare at my ring.  Ok, I’ll stop gushing now.

Onto the yummy stuff! So last week my FIANCE and I were craving cinnamon buns. But we had nothing in the fridge but a roll of Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits. I figured I could roll them out into 1 sheet and make something with them.  Brad doubted me though, which I don’t think he ever will again as he ended up eating 4 of these babies.  They seriously came out a thousand times better than those packaged biscuits. Check out my recipe below and enjoy these gooey, cinnamon-y, sweet pastries!

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 3 TBSP butter melted

Icing/Glaze Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1-2 Tbsp milk

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine and form biscuits into a ball.  Roll out the dough into an even sheet on a floured surface.  Try to make it as even as possible in a rectangular shape.

Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and put aside.

Mix together 2 TBSP of the melted butter and the vanilla in a separate small bowl.  You will need the rest of the butter to brush on the outside before baking.

Once you have your dough rolled out, spoon the vanilla/butter mixture evenly onto the dough.  Sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture on top of the butter and spread it evenly covering as much of the surface as possible.  Then you will want to gently roll the dough long ways into a tube.  Next you will need to gently slice the dough into 1 1/2 in pieces (approximately) and lay each piece into a buttered dish.  You can use a round dish or a Pyrex rectangular dish.  Which ever you have on hand.  I like the round pie dishes better just to keep all the sides of the cinnamon buns from getting too browned on the edges.  The round dish lets the pieces touch and lay next to one another better.  1 package should make about 8-10 cinnamon buns. Spread the remaining melted butter over the buns evenly with a brush.

You’ll just want to bake these according to the regular package directions. I recommend starting at 20 min and checking them.  You don’t want them to be too browned or over done.  These guys are better soft and gooey.

Once they are done, you’ll want to mix your glaze/icing.  Pour ingredients together in a bowl and mix well.  Adjust the powdered sugar and milk until you’ve reached the consistency you want.  Pour the glaze over top of the buns while they are still warm so the glaze melts and covers them well.  You definitely don’t want to skimp on this part! Finally, enjoy!

Honey Butter Beer Bread

Happy Monday all, I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.  I spent mine on my couch nursing a cold.  However I got too antsy after the 10th hour of the Food Network.  I decided I needed to bake something.  My love has been asking me to make beer bread for quite some time, so I finally decided to give it a go!  It was actually quite simple, and didn’t take a lot of time.  No waiting around for the dough to rise or any of that (I’m too impatient for all of that anyway).

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour or 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of bread flour (if you have it)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 1 bottle of beer (12 oz) any kind — probably nothing with a lime or citrus flavoring though
• 4 Tbsp of unsalted butter – melted and cooled

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×5 in baking loaf pan with butter or cooking spray.  
• In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.  Add in honey and beer and mix until just combined.  The batter will be pretty thick.  Pour the batter into the greased bread pan evenly.  Pour melted butter over top evenly and place on middle rack of the oven.  You may want to put a baking sheet on rack below in case any of the butter spills over the sides of the loaf pan.
• Bake for about 50-60 min or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Honey Butter

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter (8 Tbsp) softened at room temp
• 1 Tbsp of honey
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

• Mix all ingredients together until well blended, spread over slice of beer bread and enjoy!