Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

As much of a sweets fan that I am, the bottom half of my body wasn’t taking the past two weeks’ TWD recipes very well. I mean, Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake and Almost-Fudge Gâteau? Hello calories! Needless to say, I was somewhat relieved to see that this week’s recipe wasn’t a dessert. Thanks to Ashley of eat me, delicious for choosing this one! To see how the 50 other TWD bakers did with this recipe, go here.

While I’ve read that others in the group loved this recipe and felt it was easy, I can’t say that my feelings are mutual. I had no trouble with the recipe until it was time to turn it out onto the floured surface. Thinking that the dough was holding together, I was surprised to see how crumbly it in fact was. I added some more milk, folded it in, and tried to roll the dough out. No luck. More milk, still no luck. But since I know the dough shouldn’t be over-handled, I dealt with the now not-too-crumbly dough, rolling it to half an inch as instructed. Things were moving and I was feeling good once I got all the biscuit rounds (14 2 inch rounds in all) onto the parchment papered cookie sheet. I even put the sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes to re-chill the dough so that the butter wasn’t too soft for baking – I wanted flakey biscuits.

Flakey biscuits are not what I got. The biscuits barely rose and overcooked at 18 minutes. Did I realize that 18 minutes was the upper end of the time range? No. duh. It was early Sunday morning and I had trouble wrapping my head around the recipe after dealing with the crumbly dough. Let’s be generous and say that my biscuits turned into little scones. An easy fix. 🙂 So when serving them, I was an equal-opportunity food preparer. I used some as biscuits and made little slider-like egg sandwiches and I used some as scones, adding a pat of butter and drizzling them with honey. YUM!! Changing my mindset of what they should have turned out like into what I actually got and going with it really helped. I wasn’t totally disappointed that they didn’t turn out as I had hoped and I’ll consider trying them again in the future.

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Last Week’s TWD: Almost-Fudge Gâteau

Next Week’s TWD: Snickery Squares

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Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
source: Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home to Yours

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
• 1/2 cup cold sour cream
• 1/4 cold whole milk
• 1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, preferably toasted (I omitted)

Getting Ready:

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch-diameter biscuit cutter and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.
2. Whisk the flour(s), baking powder, salt, and baking soda together in a bow. Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between– and that’s just right.
3. Stir the sour cream and milk together and pour over the dry ingredients. Grab a fork and gently toss and turn the ingredients together until you’ve got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle kneading– 3 or 4 turns should be just enough to bring everything together. Toss in the pecans and knead 2 to 3 times to incorporate them.
4. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour, pat the dough out with your hands or toll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don’t worry if the dough isn’t completely even– a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.
5. Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of the first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working with them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2-inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet. (The biscuits ca be made to this point and frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight and kept for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting– just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)
6. Bake the biscuits for 14-18 minutes, or until they are tall, puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 14-18 minutes

Yields: 12-15 biscuits