Cheddar Chipotle Biscuits

I LOVE cheese! Let's just get that out of the way, right away. I was once told that the hives I was experiencing was an allergic reaction to too much dairy. I cried for a week. Though there are many dairy substitutes available these days (soy, rice, veggie, etc.), nothing compared to plain old from-the-cow dairy. Since that awful doctor's visit, I have significantly cut down on the amount of dairy I eat and switched to mostly organic. However, there are days where I just have to indulge my cravings and have real cheese, and lots of it. These biscuits are a great way to do just that.


Cheddar Chipotle Biscuits:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
pinch chipotle pepper
pinch salt
8 oz extra-sharp Cheddar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combine butter, salt and peppers with mixer (on low)
Add flour and combine
Add cheese and milk and mix until ball forms
Wrap ball of dough in wax paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes. If you want to slice and bake, shape dough into a log before refrigerating.
Roll out dough to 1/4" thick on a lightly floured surface and cut biscuits with cookie cutter, or slice rounds from log that are 1/4" thick.
Place dough slices on parchment lined baking sheet and bake until edges are golden brown, about 18 minutes

Store at room temp in a Ziploc or airtight container



I got the original idea for these biscuits from Vegetable Matter. However, I didn't want to spend the money on white cheddar, so I used yellow cheddar, which is usually a few dollars cheaper. I don't know if that made a difference, but I found that my cheese and flour mix did not combine well, and there was much more cheese than anything, so I added the milk and a bit extra flour. I also switched the pepper from cayenne to chipotle, since I like chipotle and we have tons of it . I used the slice and bake method, as you can see in the picture above, which worked fine but gave me slightly misshapen biscuits.

These biscuits smelled delicious as they were baking and I couldn't resist taking one right off the pan and eating it hot. I gave my husband a bite and I guess he liked them; his exact reaction was "take that Red Lobster biscuits! I don't think any of these are going to make it into work, or even until morning." This recipe made 16 biscuits so we did have a few left the next day. Since these received such high praise, I think I will be making these again!

Baking Powder Biscuits

Once, while at my in-laws' house, I was instructed to make baking powder biscuits. I was to use a recipe that, I was told, came from a family friend some time ago and has been loved ever since. Never having made biscuits of any kind (except for the Pillsbury in the can kind of biscuits), I was a little leery. However, I soon discovered it was one of the easiest things I would ever bake from scratch!

The other night, while thinking about how hungry my stomach was and how un-filling the scheduled chicken salad sounded, I thought back to those biscuits. Unable to locate the sacred recipe, I searched online for one and found several that would suffice, as most basic recipes call for the same ingredients and steps:

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter or shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients
Make an indent in the mixture, pour the milk into it, and combine
Knead the dough about 10 times
Roll out the dough and cut into circles or grab small handfuls of dough
Place biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake until biscuits are lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

My only advice on this recipe is to be sure not to over-knead the dough; if you do you will have some mighty chewy biscuits.

How easy these biscuits are to make is surprising; how good they are is awesome, and how you can serve them is endless (we ate them with butter on them as a dinner side and my husband made sausage gravy that we poured over them the next day for breakfast). If you haven't tried making them yet, I would definitely suggest it!