Biscuits

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Cinnamon Buns

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Okay, this is crazy. My mom has been making biscuits from the 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook since I was a kid. Some mornings these fresh biscuits would fill the kitchen with that welcoming baking aroma and what’s better than slathered butter dripping off a biscuit sandwich.

So I started making these biscuits, too, from the same 1950 Betty Crocker Cookbook (my mom gifted me one she found at a flea market years ago — she says her copy has some pages torn out by baby-me). The book is always on my shelf and I know to go to page 67 to find the recipe.

But turn to page 68. You’ll find a slew of variations for this dough. Cinnamon Buns is one of them. I never look at that recipe, I just make the dough and follow my memory of how cinnamon buns come about. Easy! And great. This batch I didn’t bake as long as I usually do. So they are a bit paler, but oh-so soft. Either way. Perfect.

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These are soooo good!

Betty Crocker Biscuit Dough for Cinnamon Buns

2 cups AP flour

2  1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup butter (cold)

3/4 cup milk

Cinnamon Bun additional ingredients:

2-3 tablespoons softened room temp butter

1 tablespoon cinnamon & 2 tablespoons sugar, combined

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Whisk the dough dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cut in 1/4 cup cold butter until it’s broken into small pieces (I use a pastry cutter). Add the milk. Use a fork to whisk dough together until you can knead it. Knead it just enough to get it to stay together in one ball.

Dust a clean work surface lightly with flour. Roll out dough until about 12 X 12-inch or 12  X 9-inch (about an 1/8-inch thick).

To make the cinnamon buns: Spread the softened butter over the surface of the dough to cover in a thin film. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly. Roll from one end (the longer end is best) into a as-tight-as-you-can-roll jelly roll.

Cut 1/2-inch or 1-inch slices from the roll. Place slices cut side up, next to each other touching, on a silpat or parchment-lined sheet pan. Bake for about 12-15 minutes until lightly golden. Let cool completely.

For the Glaze:

1 tablespoon softened room temp butter

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

hot water

In a medium mixing bowl press out the butter with a spoon to make it smooth. Add the powdered sugar and mix until the butter is blended into small pieces with the sugar. Add the vanilla and mix. Run the kitchen faucet until water is very hot. Add a couple of tablespoons of hot water to the mixture and stir rapidly with a spoon to combine to smooth. If frosting seems too thick, add a little more hot water until it becomes the right consistency for drizzling. Add water just a very little at a time— even just drops. (If it becomes too thin, let sit for a while — it will thicken on its own. Or add a little more powdered sugar.)

When buns are cooled, rallying them together on a serving tray, touching. Drizzle glaze on top in a zigzag motion. Eat.

CinBunsToCutCinBunsDoughCut

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My Crazy Breakfasts

biscuits and butter

biscuits and butter

I live in the South and for breakfast I sometimes have biscuits. And sometimes I have grits. (Not on the same day.) This is not new to my new Southern living. When I lived in NYC I often ate biscuits for breakfast. And sometimes made grits. I love biscuits. And I love grits.

So my biscuit roots and my grits roots are not Southern roots. My favorite biscuit recipe is from Betty Crocker’s 1950 cookbook, a book my mom had when I was a baby and so I have it, too.

Betty Crocker

Betty Crocker

My mom was born and raised in Brooklyn and she made Betty Crocker’s biscuits. That’s how I learned it.

My grits recipe snuck into my repertoire somewhere in the 1990’s while living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and followed me to Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx and has followed me to the South. (Sorry, everyone, I use instant grits…what do you expect a New Yorker to do?) I call my breakfast grits “crazy grits” because they are certifiable.

These are both breakfasts I eagerly look forward to. Mondays are usually grits mornings (Duane says it’s his favorite breakfast). For a while I refrained from making biscuits at all because we were trying to lose weight and bready, starchy things are weighty. But just this past Sunday morning I threw diet to the wind and made biscuits. I could (literally) eat the whole batch, but I didn’t. But I wanted to.

Page 67. That’s the page Betty Crocker’s biscuits are on. Even if I think I have it memorized I take out the book (red Pennsylvania Dutch pattern with a missing spine) and go immediately to page 67 for the recipe.

page 67

page 67

This past Sunday, tho, I just went with my whimsy (and left the book on the shelf). A cup and a half of flour. A teaspoon and a half of baking powder, a large pinch of salt, a bit of aleppo, 4 tablespoons of butter, cut in with a pastry cutter. Betty then adds milk. I was feeling devil-may-care. I had a leftover 1/4 cup of ricotta. And a leftover 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Oh yeah.

I barely knead it. Just push together to stick and pat into a thick disk.

I barely knead it. Just push together to stick and pat into a thick disk.

cut biscuit dough straight down. no wiggling.

cut biscuit dough straight down. no wiggling.

just baked biscuits

just baked biscuits

Over easy eggs. A few chorizo sausages chopped up. Some summer sliced tomatoes. And biscuits and butter.

breakfast of champions. or silly people. or both.

breakfast of champions. or silly people. or both.

On Monday… the grits. Here’s why they’re crazy. I top them with a sauté of vegetables (etc) that are hanging out in the refrigerator. This time there were 3 kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of peppers, mushrooms, onion, scallions, arugula, and some more chorizo. I sauté these up in a medium fry pan, while the grits simmer in a medium saucepan. I add salt, parmigiano, cumin and some aleppo to the grits. I add cumin, salt, pepper, turmeric (just a tad) to the veggies. Sometimes I splash a bit of vermouth.

vegetable saute

vegetable saute

The grits go first into the bowl and then the tasty chopped wonders on top. Duane adds one of his hot toppings: ghost pepper sauce, tabasco, or sriracha. I just take it straight.

grits for me and Duane

grits for me and Duane

grits for me

grits for me

Breakfast. Break that fast with delicious. Nothing much Italian about these dishes, but a palate must roam.

my friend, the biscuit

my friend, the biscuit

 

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Cinnamon Twists from my Childhood

Thanks, mom. And Betty Crocker. This recipe looks unassuming but once you unleash it in your kitchen you must eat every single one of them. Yes, they are that good. Even if your first bite does not tip you off. It’s the how-often-you-go-back that proves the point.

It all starts with a biscuit recipe from an old Betty Crocker cookbook (copyright 1950). Take the dough, roll it out, add the butter, cinnamon & sugar and make the twists. Bake ’em, then top with vanilla glaze. Ear-re-SIST-able.

Here’s my demo on WSMV Channel 4 Nashville’s More at Midday show (with Holly Thompson). And the recipe is below.

Chef Paulette’s Cinnamon Twists VIDEO

Chef Paulette’s Biscuit Dough Cinnamon Twists

2 cups flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold

¾ cup milk

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp & spreadable

5-6 teaspoons cinnamon

2-3 teaspoons sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Add 4 1-tablespoon pats of cold butter. Cut into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or knife until butter pieces are small specks. Add milk and whisk together with a fork until a dough forms. Knead just enough to press into a thick disc of dough.

Roll out on a floured work surface to ¼ inch thick. Spread the 4 tablespoons of soft butter to cover surface of dough. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar evenly over surface. Fold dough in half and rolled lightly to seal together. Cut into 1-inch strips. Lift each strip and twist into a loose spiral. Place on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Let cool then drizzle glaze.

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

hot water

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Place sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Run tap water until very hot. Add water to sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring, until you have a semi-thick icing. Stir in vanilla. Drizzle over cinnamon sticks.