Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Potato Biscuits

Just about every month, I enter the contest at Kitchen Play. It's fun, and sometimes I win, which is good. And when I'm in an idea slump, entering a contest can spur some new ideas.

This time around, the contest is sponsored by the US Potato Board. There's a product I can get behind.

The idea behind the contest is that six bloggers create recipes for a menu featuring the sponsor's product. Then everyone else is invited to make those recipes, parts of the recipes, or adaptations of the recipes, and then blog about what they made.

So that's where I come in. Blogging about what I made. The recipe I decided to make was a pot pie with a biscuit crust.

In keeping the with rules, I only made part of the recipe - the biscuits - and I adapted.

What I thought was really interesting was that these biscuits included cooked mashed potatoes. It was one of those "oh my gosh, why didn't I think of that?" moments. I use potatoes in bread all the time, but I never thought about using them in biscuits.

These biscuits were soft and a little moist, with a nice crisp crust. I made cut biscuits, but I think they actually would have been better as drop biscuits.

Potato Biscuits

1/2 cup unseasoned mashed potatoes, cooled to room temperature, or cold
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, cold

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the potatoes with the milk in a small bowl and whisk until completely combined.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine.

Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the largest pieces are no larger than a small pea.

Add the milk/potato mixture to the flour and stir until combined.

Flour your work surface, turn out the dough, and knead gently until you have a rough ball.

For cut biscuits, roll the dough to about 3/4 inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Reroll the scraps and continue cutting until you have used all of the dough.

For free-form biscuits, use a spoon or scoop to portion the dough and place the scoops on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake at 425 degrees until the biscuits are nicely browned, about 12 minutes.
Yum