Right before Thanksgiving I was researching recipes that would be a bit out of the ordinary while using autumn ingredients, and the recipe linked below seemed interesting. It didn't make the final menu cut but the idea stayed with me.
Stubbie recently brought home a lovely Saint Marcellin and, wanting to serve it with something other than baguette, the biscuit recipe came back to mind. The original recipe seemed as though it would be sweeter than what I was looking for so I changed it a bit but I have to say that I was very impressed with the dough stacking method which yielded a really flaky biscuit. I liked the idea of using buttermilk but didn't have any in the fridge so used milk instead.
Mea Culpa; I was so busy stuffing the biscuits with oozy slabs of cheese while they were still hot that I forgot to ask L. to photograph them. I will be making them again though as I think they would be the perfect vehicle for leftover Christmas ham and chutney.
Recipe
Makes about 10 biscuits
1 cup white flour
1 cup wholewheat flour
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
5 Tbsps cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup puréed parsnips (I simmered 5 small parsnips)
2 Tbsps maple syrup
3/4 c milk
1 Tbsp melted butter
2 Tbsp chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 425.
In a bowl, mix together the flours, salt and baking powder. Blend in the cold butter until the mixture looks like extra large oatmeal.
Mix the parsnip purée, maple syrup and milk together. Add the the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until you have a shaggy dough.
Follow the instructions in the original recipe for making the biscuits or use the traditional method - roll the dough out to an inch thickness and cut biscuits out with a glass or a cookie cutter. Reroll scraps and make as many biscuits as possible.
Place on a baking sheet - next to each other if you want soft biscuits and an inch or more apart if you want crispy ones. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with nuts.
Bake the biscuits until they're golden brown, about 13-15 minutes. Cool a bit, split and eat with cheese or butter.
Original recipe from Food52, here.