Baking Powder Biscuits

Baking powder biscuits are one of my favorite foods! They're delicious with jelly or honey - I love having them for brunch. So today I'm sharing our recipe for them.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups, 2 tbsp. flour
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 4 1/2 tbsp. Crisco
• 3/4 cup milk

Yield: 6-8 large biscuits

Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until the mixture looks like a course meal (you should still be able to see little clumps of shortening).

Add milk by sprinkling it over the flour mixture tossing it in the bowl until all the milk is incorporated and you have a soft dough. 

Stir the mixture until it forms a ball which follows the fork around the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured board or pastry cloth and knead for about 30 seconds. 

Pat or roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with a floured biscuit cutter. 

Place 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Brush the tops with milk or melted butter. Bake for 12 minutes at 450º.

Immediately split biscuit and place a pat of butter inside. You can serve them with jelly, honey, or by themselves. Enjoy!

Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes

My sister's birthday was a couple weeks ago, and she picked lemon poppyseed pancakes for her birthday breakfast. We first had lemon poppyseed pancakes at Kerbey Lane Cafe in Austin and loved them - if you're ever in Austin, I highly recommend stopping there! We decided to start with this recipe for Allrecipes.com, which we modified some. They were really good - if you like citrus, this is definitely a pancake recipe to try.

Ingredients:

• Pancakes
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• 4 tsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp poppy seeds
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• cooking spray
• Lemon Glaze
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 4 tbsp butter
• juice from 2 lemons
• zest from 2 lemons

Yield: 4 servings

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, poppy seeds, and lemon zest until well combined.

Stir the milk, vinegar, and lemon juice together and let stand for 10 minutes.

Whisk in the eggs, butter, and vanilla extract.

Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture.

Whisk a few times until the batter is mostly free of lumps.

Set the griddle to medium heat (or heat a skillet over medium heat) and spray with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the griddle (or into the skillet) and cook until bubbles appear on the surface, about 2 minutes.

Flip the pancakes over with a spatula and brown the other side, about 2 more minutes.

They should be light and fluffy.

To make the glaze, melt the butter and then add the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Stir together over low heat until the glaze thickens.

Top the pancakes with the glaze and enjoy!

Cinnamon Rolls

Hi everyone! I've been so bad about posting, but I'm trying to get back into it. Today I'm sharing the recipe for cinnamon rolls - I made these for Father's Day and they are so good!  

I used the recipe from  the KitchenAid Stand Mixer manual. These take a while to make, so if you're planning on having them for breakfast, I recommend making them the night before.

Ingredients:

• Sweet dough
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 3 eggs
• 5 1/2 - 6 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter 
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Yield: 24 rolls

To begin, you need to make the sweet dough. Place the milk, sugar, salt, and butter in a small saucepan and heat over low heat until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Cool to lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in warm water in a mixer bowl.

Add lukewarm milk mixture, eggs, and 5 cups flour. Attach the dough hook to your mixer and mix for about 2 minutes on low speed.

Continuing on low speed, add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time and mix about 2 minutes, or until the dough clings to the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. Continue to mix on low speed for 2 minutes longer.

Place dough in a greased bowl and cover. Let dough rise for about 1 hour, or until it doubles in bulk.

Now you're ready to move on to the filling.

Place brown sugar,, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon and pecans in a mixer bowl.  Mix with a flat beater on low speed for about 1 minute.

Punch down the dough and roll it into a 10x24 inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface.

Spread sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly on dough.

Roll dough tightly from the long side to form a 24-inch roll, pinching the seams together.

Cut into 24 slices, 1-inch each.

Place rolls in an 11x15x2 baking pan and cover. Let rise for 45-60 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 350ºF for 20 minutes.

 Remove from pans immediately and serve. Enjoy!

Crab Cakes Eggs Benedict

I hope everyone had a good Easter! We did. At our house, we don't do a big Easter dinner, instead we do a brunch and relax for the rest of the day. This year, we made one of our family's go-to favorites - crab cakes eggs benedict. They are basically just like regular eggs benedict - but with a crab cake in place of the Canadian bacon. We borrowed the idea when we first had them at Hyde Park Bar and Grill in Austin. If you're ever in Austin, you should definitely check them out - their food is delicious!

Ingredients:

• Crab Cakes
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp. Dijon or Cajun mustard
• 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp. hot sauce
• 1 lb. fresh lump crabmeat, drained
• 1 cup (about 20 crackers) crushed saltines/Ritz crackers
• 1 qt. peanut oil
• 8 eggs
• 4 English muffins
• Hollandaise sauce
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• Dash of Tabasco
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Salt and pepper to taste

Yield: 4 servings

The recipe for the crab cakes comes from Southern Living.  To make them, stir together the first 5 ingredients, then fold in the crabmeat and crushed crackers.  Let stand for 3 minutes.

Shape the mixture into 8 patties and place on wax paper.  Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.  We've found that the crab cakes hold up much better if you chill them overnight.

Fry the crab cakes in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat for 3 to 4 minutes on each side or until golden.

Drain on paper towels.

Break the English muffins in half and lightly toast each half.  Poach the eggs in simmering water on medium heat for about 3 minutes, or until cooked.  I prefer using poach pods lightly coated with cooking spray.

To make the Hollandaise sauce, I used the blender method in James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking.

Combine the egg yolks, salt, Tabasco, and lemon juice in a blender and blend on the high setting, just enough to blend the mixture.  

Heat the butter until it is bubbling, but not to the point it is browned. Remove the insert from the lid of the blender, turn the blender on high and pour the hot butter in a thin, continuous stream. When the butter is absorbed and the sauce thick, turn off the blender. If you need to thin the hollandaise, add 1 tablespoon hot water into the sauce while the blender is running.

Assemble the Eggs Benedict by putting one crab cake on an English muffin half, then put the poached egg on top of the crab cake. If you used poach pods to poach the eggs, turn the poach pod upside down over the crab cake and gently push on the bottom - the egg should slide right out. Pour the hollandaise over the eggs and salt and pepper the eggs to taste.

These are always a big hit at my house - they make a delicious brunch for a special occasion.

Did you make anything special for Easter?