Hello, peeps and wow: can someone please tell me where September went? Oh, yeah - now I remember – it disappeared as I was shooting my next cookbook, finishing up the writing of said book - both the headnotes to the recipes and the “front matter” (intro, etc) - and handing said book over to my editor (and taking a quick trip to Iceland, to boot, with Icelandic Provisions, where I saw all the amazing sites and ate all the amazing things, including the below bread with a whipped cultured butter and skyr spread).
But back to the book that stole September - it is filled with easy recipes for savory snackable bakes and we have just settled on a title for it that I would LOVE to share with you, IF you’d be interested in subscribing to my paid newsletter? I can only share the title there, as that’s where I come clean about all the fascinating BTS that goes into writing a cookbook (including naming one). It drops (or could drop) in your inbox the first Tuesday of every month and costs $50/year or $5/month. Each letter includes the deepest of dives into the cookbook writing process, and an EXCLUSIVE recipe from the not-yet published book (don’t tell my publisher).
But I’m not only here to try to persuade you to subscribe to my cookbook newsletter, I’m also here to share 3 recipes with you. They are all from a story I wrote for the Washington Post about cream biscuit dough (WaPo has a paywall, so I am linking to the story elsewhere on the web - don’t tell . . . ). Cream biscuit dough is pretty special, as instead of calling for butter, it calls for heavy cream and - wait for it - can be the foundation for so many biscuit-adjacent, delicious things. This dough is versatile, simple to assemble and impossibly tender, which is why it makes such a great blank canvas for the recipes herein. In a prior letter I showed you how to turn this dough into cinnamon sugar pull-apart muffins. And this week (in honor of my next cookbook), we’re going savory.
First on the list is, very simply, the drop cream biscuit itself. Because you assemble them with heavy cream, rather than butter, the resulting biscuits are not only tender and rich, but can be thrown together in about 5 minutes and baked in about 15. You’re welcome and you’ll find the recipe here.
In addition to the straight up drop biscuits, you can also make Cheesy Chive and Pepper Pinwheels with the dough: you roll it out, spread it with a little mayo (a trick I learned for adding a little salty, unctuous flavor to savory bakes) and then generously sprinkle the mayo with cheese, chives and pepper. You then roll up the dough, slice it and bake. These little treats are the party trick you didn’t know you were missing and you can find the recipe here.
The third cream biscuit dough recipe is for an oldie but goodie and an absolute fan favorite – pigs in a (homemade biscuit) blanket. To make them, you’ll wrap hot dogs in strips of the dough, slice them, chill them for 10 minutes and then bake them until golden brown. They deliver everything you expect from a wrapped piggy, but with about an eighth of the effort.
Aside from using the same dough, these three recipes have something else in common: all three require an egg wash. I am particularly fond of egg washing savory bakes, as they all seem to run very brown post-bake, and the wash gives them a lovely, glossy finish. Here’s a pro tip of mine for cracking your eggs:
If you’re interested in learning (or hearing) about different kinds of biscuits (in addition to my beloved cream ones) check out the episode of my baking podcast She’s My Cherry Pie, where I do a deep dive into biscuits with the queen herself, Cherly Day.
Alrighty, peeps, goodbye and happy biscuit dough making. See you in two (weeks).
Thanks for sharing! I’m traveling for the next week, but I’m looking forward to baking these treats when I get home! 🤍