Keeping the Southern Girl Card Biscuits

     Food blogging is a funny thing.  For me reading food blogs is kinda like going to the store on an empty stomach.  I like to sit down and read the new blog posts when I come home from work, but sometimes this can be detrimental to my own cooking plans! Its hard when you read about other peoples successes and look at their drool worthy pictures.  All of a sudden your simple meal is lack luster, or you start obsessing about making something that they made on their blog.  For me it was biscuits.
     Now for most people biscuits aren't a big deal, but for me they are up there with pancakes(highly desirable and one of the few things I absolutely SUCK at making!) I swear I almost lost my Southern Girl Card over not being able to make them, but Rachel over at Bakingtruehappiness (go check her out, her blog is new but her breads rock!~) made some delightful looking biscuits and got me thinking about biscuits. So much so that I had to make them! I researched recipes online until I found the one that I thought would give me what I wanted (tall flaky biscuits) and then decided that I wanted to add buttermilk. The end result was the best biscuits I have ever made and a DEFINITE keeper recipe!
(And yes people, I dorked out and made flower shaped biscuits---in my defense, I was inspired by Rachel's heart shaped ones.)

Keepin the Southern Girl Card Biscuits


3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup butter -- let partially freeze and then grate with cheese grater!
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup buttermilk



Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. With a knife or pastry cutter cut in, flour, baking powder, cream of tartar,salt, sugar and margarine. Cut in until it becomes course and crumbly. Whip together milk and egg with a fork. Mix with the flour mixture until it forms a soft dough. Add flour if the dough is too sticky. I made a well and stirred it as little as possible. Roll out dough with a rolling pin to about 11/2 to 2 inch thickness. I think mine were about an inch. Next time I am going to push it to the 1.5.
Cut out the biscuits. (I made flowers!) Place biscuits on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. (mine took 14-15) Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes and brush the tops with a bit of melted butter.

p.s. if you have been wondering why I haven't been blogging as much it is because I sprained my wrist and typing pretty much sucked my will to live!

Frohe Weihnachten--Stollen

I tried. I really, really tried. I had these wonderful dried figs and dates...soaked in espresso. Organic cocoa powder and handmade marzipan. I followed the directions to the best of my abilities. In the end however, I came up against my nemesis, who unfortunately is almost guaranteed to take me down every single time: Yeast, I loathe you. I'm not sure what happened but my dough didn't raise at all and I ended up scraping the entire thing and then I was in a super funk about it and not sure if I could afford the extra ingredients.  However anyone that knows me knows that I love a challenge and I had to try it again.. different recipe.

This months daring bakers challenge was to make stollen which according to our friend Wiki has been around since before 1474. I did make stollen it just wasn't quite the recipe from the bakers challenge. Was this challenge a success? I will give it a 50/50. The stollen is AMAZING. First the smell hits you and then the taste... its outta this world. I made this bad boy last night and we ate a piece about three in the morning and then really cut into it today. I am definitely adding this one to my repertoire and my sweets for holiday list! Tonight we had it with some Marzipan coffee and it was delectable!

Stollen
(delightfully modified from King Arthur website)
2 1/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt*
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) cold butter
1 cup ricotta cheese, part-skim milk type
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dried fruit blend; or 1/2 cup golden raisins + 1/2 cup of your favorite dried fruits, chopped to 1/2" pieces if necessary
Reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon if you use salted butter


Preheat your oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or line it with parchment.
Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl.
Cut the cold butter into small chunks, then blend it into the flour mixture to form uneven crumbs.
In a separate bowl, mix together the cheese, egg, vanilla, and flavors.
Toss the fruit and almonds with the flour mixture until evenly distributed. Then combine the wet and dry ingredients, mixing until most of the flour is moistened.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, and knead it two or three times, until it holds together. Divide it in half.
Roll each piece of dough into an 8" x 7" oval about 1/2" thick.
Fold each piece of dough roughly in half, leaving the edge of the top half about 1/2" short of the edge of the bottom half. Should you fold the long way, or the short way? The long way will give you a longer, narrower stollen, with shorter slices; folding the short way will give you a wider, fatter stollen, with longer slices.
Use the edge of your hand to press the dough to seal about 1" in back of the open edge; this will make the traditional stollen shape. It's also the familiar Parker House roll shape, if you've ever made them. *
Place the shaped stollen on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake the stollen till they're very lightly browned around the edges, about 40 minutes. A cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean.
Remove the stollen from the oven, and transfer to a rack. Brush them each with 2 to 3 tablespoons melted butter and Rum.  Sprinkle heavily with confectioners' sugar.
Allow the stollen to cool, then brush with butter again, and sprinkle with sugar again. Wrap in plastic wrap till ready to serve.


I severely changed the protocol here :
roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches (40 x 61 cms) and ¼ inch (6 mm) thick.

put a 1/4 inch "snake" of marzipan in the center.
Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.
Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape. Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough. Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape.

 
 
Blog Checking Lines:
The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration