Last Updated on February 8, 2023 by Michelle
“Easy” and “homemade biscuits”? In the same sentence? Yes. And you can even throw in a few more adjectives, like delicious, wholesome, and cost effective. But, first, let me explain…
A few decades, and three kitchens, ago my mom had a step stool custom made for the girls. It fit perfectly at the end of our kitchen peninsula, so their eager little hands could reach the dough when they helped me mix cookie batter or make biscuits.
Magic, crafted in our farmhouse kitchen
One daughter, who wasn’t even born when that white oak stool was crafted in a Mennonite woodworking shop in Pennsylvania, now crafts something magical in our New England colonial kitchen every day. She hasn’t needed that worn, scratched up stool in over a dozen years, and I even allow her to play with fire these days. Especially when she’s creating a masterpiece of hearth-baked pizza in our beehive oven, or teaching her older sister.
(Don’t worry, her older sister teaches her to machine quilt–see what I mean here–so it’s all good.)
And she’s fascinated with perfecting cooking over the open fire.
She also loves the joy of wholesome cooking and pours over research on homesteading, now that we have set down roots on 14 rural acres. Fresh, from-scratch recipes are continually cascading out from under the well-worn, stained cover of her recipe notebook. Oil- and butter-scarred handwritten scrap papers are piled on kitchen shelves and layered in our little junk drawer. Some with recipes, some with cost analysis lists, tracking individual ingredient prices so she knows if she’s saving money with each recipe.
Her favorites are the ones that are delicious, wholesome, and cost effective. These prized recipes are housed in plastic page protectors and filed in her notebook.
Of course, it’s an added bonus if the recipe efficiently uses something we’re drowning in on any given season on the farm… from ocher-brown and faintly-blue shelled treasures from the coop to foamy ivory cream we skimmed off of yesterday’s milking rewards.
If you wanna make the amazing biscuit recipe below and don’t have any heavy cream on hand, no problem. Simply substitute ¾ cup milk and ¼ melted butter–thoroughly mixed–for every one cup of cream.
Every spring, when we’re drowning in eggs on the farm, we often enjoy my grandma’s recipe for cheesy egg souffle.
How to make a good biscuit perfect
To make these (or any) biscuits extra yummy, I brush a sweet coating of maple syrup on top before putting them in the oven and then a second coating a minute before they’re done. I also love making a maple version of this biscuit recipe, which you can download in my subscriber library, just sign up right here. Mmmmmm. Seriously.
Sit down with a warm biscuit and cup of hot tea, and you just made yourself a perfect bit of heavenly minutes in your day, no? Then tomorrow enjoy a Maple Chocolate Chip Cookie with your tea and that just might get you through the week. Cause, well, maple and chocolate, need I say more? Subscribe here for immediate access to maple-infused recipes like that heavenly cookie and more.
Need a good source to purchase maple syrup? If I didn’t have my own sugarbush this is where I would be buying my syrup. (affiliate link) This sugar shack, run by the Plante family, makes some amazing all-natural, wood-fired syrup, right here in New Hampshire. As if the sheer deliciousness wasn’t enough, the owners are some of the nicest guys I know.
Wanna know the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.
Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.
A gift that helped her reach her potential
Looking back almost 2 decades, I’m thankful her NaNa gave her sisters that sweet stool… it was a gift that helped one daughter reach her potential, literally, long before she even needed it. And I’m thankful that, by the grace of God, I’ve weathered very messy kitchens, grave experimentation, and oh-so-many piles of chicken-scratched, soiled recipes over the years.
It’s never easy–come to think of it, the process called “parenting” is always rather messy– but I’m going to keep encouraging all my daughters to discover what they’re passionate about, provide what they need to reach their goals, and be willing to help them clean up the messes they make along the way.
Certainly, it’s a hard journey, but there are many moments to savor on this safari. Delicious tastes on the trek. We might even enjoy easy freezer biscuits and pies on the pilgrimage (yeah, I know I’m pushing it with the corny alliteration).
See this post for the most amazingly delicious strawberry pie you’ll ever make.
And check out her beautiful fire-baked pizza in this post.
| Servings |
biscuits
|
- 6 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 3 cups cream
Ingredients
|
|
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Add cream (or substitute ¾ cup milk and ¼ melted butter--thoroughly mixed--for every one cup of cream) to the flour mixture, mixing with a wooden spoon, until a soft, wet dough forms. Gradually add a little more cream, if needed.
- Push the dough out with your hands, about 1.25″ thick.
- Cut out as many biscuits as you can, then gather the scraps, kneed them together, and re-push out and re-cut. You can do this as many times as you need to.
- Bake fresh or freeze them for later. To freeze them, place the biscuits on a greased cookie sheet, cover them, and place them in the freezer until hard, 2-5 hours. When they’re frozen, put them in a large resealable, freezer-safe bag, or an air-tight container, and place them back in the freezer until you’re ready to bake them.
- To bake biscuits, do not thaw them. Place them, frozen, on a cookie sheet. If you'd like, baste the top of each biscuit with maple syrup. You can baste them with a second coating a minute or two before removing them from the oven as well.
- Pre-heat oven to 425, but reduce temperature to 400 when you place the biscuits in. Bake for 15-20 minutes, flipping them halfway through if you'd like. (Of course if I coat the tops in maple syrup, I don't flip them.)
“Let’s not become weary… for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)
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I had no idea it was possible to make biscuits for the freezer! I’m so glad I found this.
Well, how about that! I’m glad you found it too! (p.s. this recipe is so easy and forgiving, I often use it for my everyday, bake-them-now biscuits too. 🙂 )
I am looking for the maple scones mentioned in your presentation on a homesteading summit . I love to bake scones and am dying to try this!
Hope you’re enjoying the Modern Homesteading Summit, Leslie! Isn’t it great? The scone recipe is in the downloadable 22-page ebook that you can access on my workshop page in the summit. But for subscribers here on the blog, anytime, that delicious recipe is always available in the resource library as well (and is also in the final page of my Maple Goodness ebook, which is also in my resource library). Let me know how they turn out! 🙂
regardless of how many biscuits you set the recipe for note for milk says “Add up to 1 additional cup, gradually, if needed. If you don’t have cream on hand, substitute with 3-4 cups of milk and 1/2 cup melted butter. ” (didnt notice this until later)
so i had it set for 14 biscuits and did as stated – the “dough” was like soup. probably added another cup of flour.
didnt turn out good….
not sure if it was the recipe or me???
Jennifer, I feel so bad that you had a gloppy mess on your hands tonight!!! I truly hope you were able to salvage it. I saw what was causing you the confusion, and have made sure everything is working correctly now.
well, they were more like hockey pucks with all of the extra working…but i might try them again with the correct substitution. 🙂
thanks!
Ugh… (she hangs her head in shame) please let me know how the next time turns out. 🙂
I took my biscuits and dropped them in the homemade soup. Tasted fine. But sure thing the left over biscuits were lethal weapons the next day.
Michelle , any ideas for replacing dairy cream or milk ?
I ve been dairy free since 1990.
any dairy alternative should work