What I’m Thinking About:
🥕 Justine Doiron revealed the cover and release date for her cookbook, Justine Cooks! Pre-ordering stat.
🍽️ I got an Instagram ad for this splatterware and now feel like I need it all, even though I just bought new plates and bowls. Alexa: Cue Satisfied from Hamilton.
☕ Speaking of dish ware, I bought a mug similar to this one from this ceramics artist when I was in Whistler as a gift for Tom and we’re both incredibly obsessed with it. The indentation/notch underneath the handle is revolutionary.
🍝 Deb from Smitten Kitchen posted this and saved me from having to go to the grocery store two nights ago. I will be forever grateful.
What I Made:
I started writing this post by tearing myself down for a less than perfect looking biscuit. The reality is, I made delicious biscuits! And you should too! Really, I’m just a bit of a perfectionist when sharing recipes here and am harder on myself than I should be. Do they look perfect? Absolutely not. They are slumped over. Fallen biscuit soldiers. But guess what? They still taste excellent. Beyond that, I’m obviously not going to make a biscuit that looks as perfect as the very well trained pastry chefs at Fox in the Snow make them look and that’s okay.
For those who don’t know, Fox in the Snow is a local bakery and coffee shop in Columbus. The aesthetic is immaculate. There are big windows with a lot of natural light, truly beautiful pastries piled high behind the glass as you wait in line, and always a line out the door because it’s just that good.
Early on in the pandemic, my previous roomie and bestie, Summers (hi Sums!), made these and they were divine. The recipe as well as a video are posted online, making it seemingly foolproof to execute at home. In fact, the pastry chef/co-owner states multiple times in the video that it’s a very non-fussy biscuit recipe. If you’ve been to Fox in the Snow, you know about these biscuits already. If you haven’t, picture the most perfectly tall, super layered, buttery, salty and sweet biscuit. That is their biscuit.
In all seriousness, deciding to make these around lunchtime today when I knew I had to write this tonight was a bit ambitious. Strike one for procrastination. With that being said, they really weren’t fussy. I think I know where my mistakes were made, and I definitely took some creative liberties based on the kitchen tools I didn’t have on hand, which also may have had an effect on their appearance. You can find the recipe and video here, but make sure to read below on what I’d do differently next time! Oh, and take my advice: Make these for Easter brunch. Everyone will thank you.
What I Learned:
My food processor is small. Because of that, I divided the butter and dry ingredients in half and pulsed them in the food processor separately, then combined it all in a large bowl. It worked fine!
I don’t own a rolling pin. I used an olive oil bottle instead, but a wine bottle would also do. 😉
I’m sure the combination of egg yolks and heavy cream in the pastry world make a difference compared to a regular egg wash, but I’m not sure if I could tell. If you don’t have heavy cream on hand, I wouldn’t say it’s worth the trip to the grocery just for that. Use a regular egg wash (egg + a tiny splash of water) instead.
The recipe said to bake these at 375 degrees, but the video said 350 degrees. *Cue panic*. I went for 375 because I have a feeling my oven runs slightly cooler than it should, given that most items take longer to cook than anticipated.
If you take nothing else from this, please read the following: The reason these tipped over started with the fact that I don’t have a biscuit cutter. Instead, I used a tall glass. Is this safe and recommended? Not necessarily, but it worked for me. The downfall with this is my biscuits were too tall when I cut them because I didn’t have a good way to eyeball that these were in fact, too tall. She recommends in the recipe to get the height to be about 3/4 of the height of the biscuit cutter. I don’t know how that exactly translates to inches, but proceed with caution and know that if they end up too tall, they’ll still be delish.
The honey butter is KEY. Bonus points if you make the jam from scratch.
Please let me know if you try these and if you don’t live in Columbus, add Fox in the Snow to your list of places to try if you ever visit!
They were soooo good!