biscuits – Luv Cooks

If biscuit heaven was a place, I think I found it.

Knoxville, Tennesse- the home of neon orange football jerseys, Mabel, and this former food post– continues to impress me. Having spent the weekend consuming the most delicious olive and scallion hummus and tasting Vietnamese pho for the first time (which, in the words of a friend of mine, tastes like “angel tears”) I thought things couldn’t get better.

That was, until the International Biscuit Festival.

Turning the corner onto Biscuit Boulevard and finding a long stretch of red and white striped tents full of happy people blessing others with hot biscuits-knowing that I could try five of whatever biscuit I chose-was about like how a small child feels staring at a never ending stack of Lucky Charms, candy bars, and free iPads.

From the humming of a biscuit-themed songwriting competition to the smell of fresh dough sizzling in a deep fryer, it was a celebration of what makes Southern food so delicious- the buttery layers of comfort and warmth we lovingly call biscuits.

Since I was forced to choose-one of these biscuit masterminds below made a bonut people- below are my top five favorites. Hopefully these will inspire you to make your own biscuit combos- or visit Knoxville next year and experience it for yourself. I’ll be there-but next year I’ll probably buy two tickets just so I can go through the line twice.

1. Green-Eyed Monster Pimento Cheese Buttermilk Biscuit, Tupelo Honey

A mind-blowing combination of spicy pimento cheese dough, buttered and sandwiched with fried jalepeno

2. Andouille Shrimp and Grits Biscuit, Applewood Farm House Restaurant

3. Candied Bacon, House-Cured Clabbered Cream, and Honey and Balsamic Reduction Buttermilk Biscuit, The Plaid Apron

Biscuits with balsamic glaze and clabbered cream — For those of you who have never tried it, clabbered cream is fantastic

4. Sweet Water Valley Smoked Cheddar and Onion Biscuit, The Tomato Head

5. Family Reserve Drop Biscuits (aka “bonuts”) with Sorghum Whipped Cream and Blueberries, Biscuit Love Truck

A lovely, sweet drop biscuit fried and filled with cream

It was the biscuit disaster of 2012.

A sticky, lumpy orange mass had attached itself to my cutting board. Flour was smeared on my fingertips and was causing everything I touched to stick to them, including the bag of flour I was desperately trying to pour more of onto my board. The scene from Christmas Vacation where Clark Griswold fought with tree sap and lost flashed in my mind, and I began to feel the panic rise in my chest.

“Please Lord,” I prayed. “Please salvage these biscuits.”

Truthfully, the reason why these biscuits meant so much to me was because I was born, raised, and still live in the South. Around here there in an expectation- no, unwritten rule- that if you are Southern, then you can make biscuits. They are on the same table as staples like black-eyed peas and fried okra. They are what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had them with the ham station at my wedding reception. And I felt like NOT being able to make them somehow disqualified me from my heritage, and how I was raised.

Real heavy, real fast. Hope returns!

Anyway, and while we are being brutally honest, this recipe I attempted was not for drop biscuits. It was for fluffy sweet potato biscuits. What resulted was what happens when you can’t make fluffy biscuits. (Side note: I added too much liquid to the dough. My brilliant sister helped me solve this one. If you choose to make regular biscuits instead of drop biscuits, just make sure you are light-handed with the milk. You should have a sturdy, sugar cookie-like dough, not a wet one.) But for me, this is what the dough became. And you know what? They were delicious.

What I uncovered with this recipe is that actually, I don’t think it mattered that I made a mess. They were light, rich, and slightly sweet with a buttery crumb. And with a bit of powdered sugar on top, I would be proud to serve them at any Southern luncheon-or table.

So join me in what might be the first recipe I have posted that you really can’t mess up. If you are like me, then you might make lots of mistakes in your kitchen. But sometimes mistakes can be our greatest cooking triumphs. That is the beauty of cooking- it turns lemons into lemonade, plain milk and eggs into ice cream, and biscuit dough into, well, drop biscuits.

Tag: biscuits

The International Biscuit Festival

Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits