Biscuits, Biscuits, Biscuits

Last summer was the Robertson Family Reunion in the Smoky Mountains, and Matt and I were in charge of a breakfast for some 36 Robertsons.. Now, I've worked for nearly 10 years to have a reputation in this family as a good baker, so this couldn't be just cereal or toast- I wanted it to be delicious. With that in mind, I signed us up for biscuits and gravy because 1. YUM and 2. it sounded like fun to make. Besides, I figured it was high time I had my own go-to biscuit recipe- You know, just something better than Pillsbury Grands and on par with Chick-fil-a's breakfast biscuit. Afterall, if it was going to become part of my reservoir of fail-safe recipes, it would just have to be that good. So for several weeks leading up to the reunion, I tried out various types of biscuit recipes before settling on this one by @katie_clova at Wood & Spoon.

A post shared by Kate Wood || Wood & Spoon Blog (@katie_clova) on Jun 13, 2017 at 5:51am PDT

A post shared by Kate Wood || Wood & Spoon Blog (@katie_clova) on Jan 3, 2018 at 9:56am PST

They had the height, they had the color, and they were pretty darn tasty. Her biscuits served us well at the reunion, but they just didn't quite have the saltiness I wanted or the stick-to-the-top-of-your-mouth essence that I was looking for in my ideal biscuit (but that's not going to stop me from trying her Maple Oatmeal Biscuits someday soon!).

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Fast forward a few months to a date night at Barnes and Noble when I came across Muffins & Biscuits by Heidi Gibson. I remembered having seen the cover when I was on my recipe hunt, but the book had been unavailable at the library and it seemed unnecessary to buy a cookbook that only claimed to specialize in two types of breakfast baked goods. Plus, the cover looked too good to be true! Several of the online recipes I had tried over the summer had ended up bland and looked nothing like the promised pictures of perfection I had seen online. But on this particular day I had a gift card and a hope and a prayer, so I decided to give Heidi's Ultra Flaky Biscuits a try.

All I can say is that the recipe search is officially over and I want to eat these biscuits everyday. It's seriously the perfect biscuit flavor and texture with the layers of a puff pastry. I get weak-kneed just thinking about those distinctly light, rugged layers, and the steam that rises when you pull them apart. 

I've also tried her Perfectly Easy Cream Biscuits, which are perfectly fine if you are making biscuits last minute. And her Bake-Sale Blueberry Muffins are pretty fantastic too (and even better the next day). We were so smitten with her book that we checked out her singular Grilled Cheese Kitchen book and ended up buying that too! But that's another story for another day :)

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Resources, Tips, and Takeaways

• Baked on my Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Non Stick Half Sheet Pan lined with parchment paper. 
• Keep your butter cold! And don't be afraid of big chunks of butter in the mix!
• When you're ready to cut biscuits, most recipes call for the dough to be at least 3/4 of an inch tall. Don't ignore this! The higher the better (I'm embarrassed to say it took me several attempts to figure that out).
• Katie brushes her biscuits with melted butter before baking for that nice golden brown, so I added that step to my second batch of Ultra Flaky's and they turned out so pretty.

Everything else you need to know is detailed in the recipes!