Sweet Blueberry Biscuits

UPDATE: Welcome Pinterest people! this recipe has gotten my lil blog so much traffic and I'm so happy you are here! If you have any questions, feel free to comment and I'll do my best to get back to you! Thanks!

I cannot say enough about these biscuits. The first time I made them was a huge experiment, but they turned out so good and got rave reviews!!!

Sweet Blueberry Biscuits

Biscuits:
adjusted from the Buttermilk Biscuits post
2 cups All-Purpose Flour (I used White Lily, a flour available in most Southern stores)
1 Tb. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tb. sugar
1 stick unsalted butter (VERY cold)
3/4-ish cup buttermilk (use enough until the dough is just barely wet enough)
1 c. frozen blueberries (we used fresh blueberries that had been frozen overnight)
1/2 stick melted salted butter

Sauce:
1 c. powdered sugar
3 Tb. milk (or more if not thin enough)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cut butter into small pats and lay out on a cookie sheet lined in wax paper. Stick in the freezer for at least 10 minutes. Prepare cast iron skillet with a tiny amount of bacon grease, if available. Easiest thing: fry one piece of bacon, wipe out the pan, and you're good to go!

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Stir the sauce ingredients together (powdered sugar, milk, vanilla), and make sure the powdered sugar is completely dissolved.

Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, sugar) together and then cut in the cold unsalted butter. Cut in until the butter is about pea sized, relatively well mixed in. Add buttermilk. Add slowly until you have just enough where the dough separates from the sides of the bowl. Stir until just combined and roll it out onto a well-floured surface.

Before kneading, prepare a large area for kneading. (I use a large cutting board for easy clean-up!) Sprinkle the area with some flour. Put the dough on the floured area and sprinkle some flour over the dough. Press the dough out (no need to roll with a pin) and flatten to about 1/2″ thickness. Put blueberries over dough. Knead a couple of times and flatten back out to about 1″ thickness. (Honestly, the thicker the better, because they rise so beautifully!) The berries will likely start to bleed onto the dough and you’ll start to see flecks of blue as the berries defrost.

Place biscuits in a cast-iron skillet and be sure biscuits are touching.

Bake at 500 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. Somewhere around 6 to 8 minutes, take the skillet out of the oven and brush the biscuits with melted salted butter. This is an integral part of the baking process. And be liberal with it, brush on the sides of the biscuits if they are showing. When you begin to see the tops lightly brown (and the blueberries burst), take them out. The temperature in the middle of the biscuits will remain very hot once out of the oven and will continue the cooking process.

NOTE: Some people have mentioned that they have to leave their biscuits in for longer than 10 or 12 minutes. I have never had to leave mine in for longer, but if you fear yours aren't getting done and want to leave them in for longer, be sure to watch them like a hawk! I promise, they will go from done to burnt in just a few seconds!

When you take the biscuits out of the oven, let the pan cool for about 10 minutes. Pour the sauce over the biscuits after 10 minutes. Use as much or little of the sauce as desired.

Serve immediately!

Peach Crisps for Two!

I came across this recipe, after looking for something dessert-y to do with some peaches I got from a local fruit&veggie stand. I only had two, so I couldn't pull off a whole cobbler, and since it's just me and my husband, we definitely didn't need a whole cobbler anyway! Once I found this recipe, I couldn't wait. And it was really good!!

Peach Crisps for Two!

slightly adapted from Joy the Baker

1 peach

1/4 c. flour

1/4 c. brown sugar

2 Tb. chilled butter

3 Tb. old-fashioned oats

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground ginger

Preheat oven (or toaster oven) to 350 degrees.

Cut peach in half, scoop out pit. Scoop out spaces a little more to make room for the oat mixture. Score the peach flesh with a knife. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Using a fork, mix in the butter with the oat mixture until you get tiny bits of butter mixed through. Pile in the oat mixture into the center space and on top of the rest of the peach half. (You can either use the whole amount of oat mixture and spread it all around, or save half for a future peach. It makes a lot!)

Bake for about 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Fruit Pizza

The final dish I made to round out our ACC championship shin-dig was this fruit pizza. I got the idea from the Pioneer Woman, but I've had tons of different kinds of fruit pizzas in my life. I'll reference her in this recipe because, technically, I got the idea that day from her :) These types of recipes are AWESOME because you can totally adjust to what is in season. And, I mean, who doesn't like eating sugar cookies and fruit?? Come on!

Fruit Pizza
as adapted from Pioneer Woman's Deep Dish Fruit Pizza

1 roll of sugar cookie dough
1 14 oz jar of marshmallow fluff
1 8 oz fat free cream cheese
whatever fruit you like! (I used strawberries, bananas, and peaches)
lemon juice (if needed)
brown sugar

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper for easy cookie removal. Roll out cookie dough until it becomes a thin rectangle (or as close as you can get it, mine was a very lumpy rectangle!)

Bake cookie according to directions on package. (I baked mine according to the package, temperature and all, but watched it closely to ensure it didn't burn.)

While the cookie is baking, whip together marshmallow fluff and cream cheese until creamy and mixed through. Chop up fruit into pieces, if needed.

**Important, if you use fruit for your pizza that could possibly brown after being cut up, be sure to sprinkle with some lemon juice. I didn't have any, and thus didn't do that. Result: browned fruit :(

When the cookie is done baking, remove from oven and let cool completely. Spread cream cheese mixture on as thick as desired. Refrigerate until completely cooled. Add fruit and refrigerate again until ready to eat. Sprinkle on a bit of brown sugar before serving.

Apple Butter and How to Can!

I'm SO excited to bring this recipe to you guys!! There are so many kitchen things I've gotten to experiment with lately, and I have been having a lot of fun. My most recent attempt was making apple butter and  canning it!

The original recipe comes from SkinnyTaste, a website I've found tons of great recipes on. I have made the apple butter recipe before, but cut it in half because I didn't want gallons of the stuff and had really no way to gauge how much it would make. (The fact that the recipe says it makes 16 2Tb. sized servings pretty much meant nothing to me. See? I'm super cooking-saavy.)

Anyway, I tried it again, making the full recipe, with some left-over 8 oz. jars from my Mom. I had 6 jars at my disposal and only ended up using 4. I want to make this for holiday baskets, so I'll probably buy some of the smaller 4 oz. ones so I can make more from this recipe.

I'll add my instructions for canning at the end.

Slow Cooker Apple Butter
from SkinnyTaste

6 apples (I used in-season gala)
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Chop up apples into small pieces. Place into slow cooker. Top with remaining ingrediants and stir well. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours. Uncover and puree with an immersion blender. Cook uncovered on high for 1-2 hours.

*Right after the apples went into the crock-pot*

*After a many hours in the crock-pot. No noticeable difference, really*

*Breaking out the immersion blender--don't look at my messy crock-pot!!*

Canning

from Food Network Magazine

1. Wash jars, lids, and bands in hot soapy water. Place the jars in boiling water for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, simmer jars until you need them.

2. Place lids and bands into simmering (not boiling!) water until you need them.

3. Remove jar one-by-one from simmering water and fill with hot preserves/jelly/butter/etc. Leave headspace on each jar.

4. Use a clean small spatula (I used a spatula handle) to go along the inside of the jar to release any air pockets.

5. Wipe rims and threads and make sure they are clean.

6. Remove lids and bands from the simmering water and place on top of filled jars. Screw tops onto jars until tight.

7. Place filled jars back into boiling water. Make sure water is 2 inches above tops of jars. Once boiling, cover pot and boil for 15 minutes.

8. After 15 minutes, lift jars from hot water and transfer to a kitchen towel. Let sit for 24 hours to ensure seal forms.

9. Check the seal--make sure the lids do not pop! Store unopened jars in a cool, dark place for up to one year. Refrigerate after opening.

**Jars boiling!**

**Lids and bands simmering**

**Preparing to boil the finished jars**

**All finished and ready to go in the cabinet!!**

Hot Apple Cider (Crockpot version)

Recently I helped out with a post-wedding shower at church, and brought, among other things, hot apple cider. Since its fall-ish outside, I felt the need to bring something that went with the season. I ended up with this recipe from Tasty Kitchen, which I then adapted. It turned out very good, and everybody seemed pleased with the results!

Hot Apple Cider
adapted from a recipe by Tasty Kitchen user babskitchen


1 gallon apple cider
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 apple
1 orange
3 tsp whole cloves
4 cinammon sticks, each broken in half
1/4 tsp allspice
2 dashes nutmeg

Pour the apple cider into a Crockpot (mine was a 6 quart Crockpot and worked perfect). Add in brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, allspice, and nutmeg. Turn on low.

Cut up the orange into 4 slices. Drop into cider mixture. Cut the apple in half and stick cloves all over the apple, both sides. Drop apple halves into cider mixture.

Cook on low for 4-6 hours.

Lemon Meringue Pie

I'm not a very experienced baker, but I definitely wanted to try to go big and make a lemon meringue pie. I love perusing the Whisk Kid's website, and discovered her recipe for lemon meringue pie. Her's looks much better than mine, but her recipe is spot on! I was terrified that my pie would end up tasting like lemon-y scrambled eggs, but it didn't!! It gets much better after a little bit of time in the fridge.

Also, PLEASE make the pie crust if you can! Her recipe for the crust is so buttery and delicious...its something a frozen pie crust just canot match.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Crust:

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

8 Tb. butter (cut up, and very cold)

4 Tb. water, very cold

Combine flour and salt. Cut in butter until tiny bits. Again, make sure the butter is very cold. Add just enough flour until moistened, knead a few times. Wrap up dough and refrigerate from anywhere to 30 minute to two days. (As a side note, I did not do this. DO NOT LEAVE OUT THIS STEP. It is very important. My pie crust did not act right once it hit the oven!)

When ready to use the crust, roll out until even to fit a 9" pie plate. Lay over pie plate, pinch down the edges, and prick dough all over with a fork. Place back into freezer.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place pie weights/beans/rice/etc onto pie crust when baking to ensure it bakes flat. (Also didn't do this. Again, NECESSARY!) Bake for 20 minutes. Remove weights/beans/rice/etc. Bake for 5-10 minutes longer. Remove from oven and prepare filling.

Pie Filling:

4 egg yolks at room temperature

1 c. sugar

2 Tb. flour

3 Tb. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. water

2 lemons, juiced and zested

2 Tb butter

4 egg whites

6 Tb. white sugar

Place egg yolks in large clear bowl. Whisk and set aside.

Combine cup of sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan. Stir in water, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and bring mixture to a boil, stirring continually. Stir in butter. Remove from heat. Pour 1/2 cup of mixture into egg yolks, whisking vigorously to ensure that egg yolks become tempered. Pour those egg yolks into the sugar mixture and continue whisking. Put pan back on the heat and continue cooking until very thick. (Just a note, this took a really long time for me!) Remove from heat and pour into cooked pie crust.

Put egg whites into mixing bowl. Using a free standing mixer or hand mixer, beat egg whites together. Slowly add the 6 Tb. of sugar and beat until you have stiff peaks.

Spoon meringue onto hot filling. Use a spatula/spoon/whatever, to fluff up the top, moving meringue to border of crust.

Bake for approx. 10 minutes, or until the tips of the meringue start to brown.