basic biscuits

flaky biscuits 2

I just got back from two weeks in Italy, which I spent eating: croissants for breakfast, baskets of bread for lunch and dinner (and not a whole grain in sight), wine with lunch and dinner, gelato at least once a day, and so on and so on and so on. And guess what? I came home exactly the same size I was when I left.

flaky biscuits 1

I wish I could use this as justification to throw all of my healthy eating ideals to the wind (I accidentally typed “wine” at first – I’m still in vacation mode) and just eat what I want to eat. And maybe I could, if I spent hours upon hours walking in my normal life, walking until my feet ached and then ached more, and then they kept aching hours after I’d stopped walking. Instead, I spend hours upon hours of my normal life sitting at a computer, both at work and at home, and that, my friends, is the difference.

flaky biscuits 5

Biscuits, and their buttery bready cousins croissants and scones, become a weekend treat. Usually I make biscuits to sandwich with eggs and ham for breakfast, but occasionally I serve them alongside crab cakes for dinner. But just occasionally. If only my normal life burned as many calories as my vacation life, I could – and would! – eat biscuits almost every day.

flaky biscuits 4

Jennifer chose these for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. I…made no changes? Maybe? I don’t know, I made these a while ago. It seems likely that I followed the recipe exactly, except I definitely used the cake flour option, because I love how light biscuits are when they’re made with cake flour.

One year ago: Fold-over Pear Torte
Two years ago: Split-Level Pudding
Three years ago: Lenox Almond Biscotti

flaky biscuits 3

Comments

  1. Wow! You must have an awesome metabolism! 🙂

    Can’t wait to see your photos from the trip!

  2. Hope you had a great time in Italy. You’re really lucky.
    I’ve always wanted to travel there.
    These look Delicious- aren’t they more sweet than savory though?
    I found the bacon and eggs a bit strange.
    I love your blog. 🙂
    Rochelle. xxx

  3. bridget says:

    Rochelle – No, they’re not sweet. For 2 cups of flour, they only have 2 teaspoons of sugar – compare that with the 3/4 cup sugar in most cookie recipes for about the same amount of flour! These are a classic standard biscuit.

  4. Wow, look how high your biscuits rose! Mine were a bit flat, so I still need to work on my biscuit technique.

    When we go to England we walk so much and I try not to worry about what I am eating, which is good since there are many British candies that I love.

  5. Welcome back! Your trip sounds absolutely amazing! And I’ve been looking for the perfect biscuit recipe. I try a new one almost every time. I love how tall and crooked the one on the right is. Just the way I like my biscuits 🙂

  6. Two weeks in Europe sounds great – I was there for that long when I was in college, but I don’t think I appreciated it nearly enough. I agree, if we could walk around all day touring we could eat croissants and biscuits to our heart’s content. Oh well…at least we can snack on them for a treat here and there. Biscuits are a favorite of mine – we like them with a pot roast. Yours look nice and flaky – I love layers in my biscuits like yours have..I pull them apart and spread butter and jelly on each layer…yum!

  7. Moral of the story: we should be on vacation, all the time.

  8. I agree with Cara. We all just need more vacations!