Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Cheddar-Scallion Biscuits

It doesn't matter what you call them - scallions, spring onions, or green onions, the skinny little onions with green shoots start looking really good at the grocery store when spring is springing. Fluffy spring lettuce and asparagus are also harbingers of the season, but those onions deserve just as much glory.

In the years when my dad would plant onions in his garden, he'd have to thin out the plants as the season progressed to make room for the growing bulbs. First, he'd harvest some when they were young and skinny, then there would be some with small bulbs on the bottom. And later, we'd have full-sized onions.

I love onions in just about every form, but when I buy the skinny green onions, I'm just as anxious to make use of the green tops as I am to use the white part of the onion. If you can't find green onions, chives would work just as well.

Cheddar-Scallion Biscuits

2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 ounces cheddar, grated
Green part of 1 scallion, sliced thin
1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleanup.

In a medium bowl. combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, Whisk to combine. Cut the butter into several pieces and add it to the flour, With your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until you have very small pieces throughout. Add the cheese and scallion, and stir to distribute. Add the milk and stir to combine.

Flour your work surface lightly. Remove the dough from the bowl, put it on your floured surface, and pat it into a rough square about 9 inches across. Fold the dough in thirds, like a letter, pat it down again until it's about an inch thick, turn it 90 degrees, and fold in thirds again.

Dust your work surface with flour again, if needed, and roll the dough to a thickness of 1/2 to 3/4 inches. Using a biscuit cutter or other similar tool, cut circles from the dough and place them on your prepared baking sheet.

Re-roll the scraps. You'll get a better rise out of the next batch of biscuits if you keep the dough oriented the same way instead of rolling it up or smashing it together.

The folding in the previous steps has created horizontal layers that cause the biscuits to rise, just like the layers in pastry crust or puff pastry. So, when you combine the scraps, keep the horizontal layers horizontal as much as possible.

Cut more biscuit from the rerolled biscuit dough. If you don't want to end up with even more scraps, consider cutting the second batch into squares instead of rounds.

Rather than re-rolling a third time, you can make a few hand-formed biscuits from the last scraps. They won't be pretty, but they're fine as samples for the cook.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with milk or melted butter, if desired, and bake at 400 degrees until lightly browned, about 20 minutes
Yum

17 comments:

Lenia said...

Oh my God,they look so delicious!Wish I had some!

Jen said...

I love biscuits. Especially cheese and onion biscuits.

shevon said...

wow, those biscuits look amazing.

baobabs said...

OMG yum!!! haven't cooked with this combination but looking forward to try!

Alicia - Bakeaholic said...

If I made these, I would fully eat them all. to myself! They look good and dangerous

Jane said...

Read your post at the office and turned on the oven as soon as I got home.
... The biscuits have just come out of the oven. They have risen beautifully, they smell great and I can't wait to take a bite. Thanks for the recipe! (Will be posting on Monday.) - Jane from Malaysia

Maria said...

They look perfect!

Memória said...

These photos are making me want to break my diet, buy the ingredients, and make these, but I'm trying to keep my fridge free of anything fatty or anything that can create something fatty LOL!!! I don't even have flour, butter, or cheese! I guess I'll just have to bookmark this recipe for the far future. *sigh*

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

I used the instructed amounts of each ingredient but the dough was too wet too roll :(

Donna Currie said...

Hi Anonymous. It is a pretty soft dough, so you need to flour your board pretty well and treat it gently. After the folding, it should be able to rolled to the right thickness and cut, though. The first time I worked with a really wet biscuit dough I was skeptical, but it worked.

Morsels of Life | CJ Huang said...

These biscuits look great! I've been on a bit of a biscuit streak, and I'm thinking I'll continue the streak with these cheddar scallion biscuits!

Barb said...

I wish this said how many to expect to get...

Donna Currie said...

Barb, it depends on how big you cut them and how good you are at re-rolling about a dozen, more or less.

Barb said...

Thanks, Donna. I want to make them for a potluck, so I'll probably double the recipe and just square-cut them from the get-go and avoid the whole re-rolling thing.

Donna Currie said...

Squares make a lot of sense, for sure. And easier.

Barb said...

Doubling the recipe gave me 24 biscuits about 2 inches square, roughly.

And they're fabulous! Thank you for this recipe.

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