Seven Up Biscuits

By now you all are probably more than well aware of my penchant for unusual ingredients.  Case in point, my recently posted Grape Jelly Glazed Meatloaf.  So it was only natural when I spotted this recipe, currently running rampant on the web, that I just had to give them a try.  I am a huge biscuit fan, and always looking for something new.  I don’t keep soda on hand, as a rule, so had to buy a liter bottle of Seven Up for just the half cup called for, but it was well worth it.  These are sensational.  They are hard to describe, really.  The outside has a crispness uncommon to most biscuits that I’ve tried, the inside is like a cloud.  These are the lightest, fluffiest, most delicious biscuits that I think I’ve ever had.  Word of warning, they are very light, so if you like to pile your biscuits with lots of jelly or other toppings, they may just crumble under the weight.  A light spread of butter and perhaps a dollop of your favorite jam is all you need.  These will take you to biscuit heaven!

Seven Up Biscuits

2 cups Bisquick baking mix

½ cup sour cream

½ cup 7-Up or other lemon lime soda

3 Tbsp. butter, melted, divided

Preheat oven to 450°F.

In the work bowl of a food processor combine the baking mix and sour cream just until blended. Add the 7-Up and pulse until incorporated. The dough will be very tender. Sprinkle some additional baking mix on your working surface and carefully shape the dough into a 9-inch square.  This isn’t easy; it is a very light, rather sticky dough.  Using a very sharp knife, cut dough into 9 squares. Pour 2 of the Tbsp. of melted butter into a 9-inch square baking dish. Be sure the butter coats the bottom of the pan.  Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden. Brush tops of biscuits with remaining melted butter.

This post is linked to:

Inspire Me Tuesday

Totally Tasty Tuesdays

Try a New Recipe Tuesday

Tasty Tuesdays

Smiley-Face Pancakes -- Good Morning!

It's been a while since I've had kids living in the house, as for me, I haven't been a kid since the Nixon Administration.  Despite these two things, however, I still occasionally get a hankering to make some kid-friendly food.  Things that I know would have made my boys smile and enjoy their meal much more so because of the extra effort and creativity.

This morning while fixing pancakes I decided to get in touch with my inner child and play around a bit, the end result were these smiley pancakes.  Easy, delicious, and FUN, you alone will have a great time with these, but with kids it should be a real fiesta.  And really, admit it, don't you want to be known as the best mom (or grandma) on the block?  neighborhood?  world?!  Well, I can't guarantee that making these pancakes will do it, but it can't hurt.

Here's what I did.  I followed the directions on the Bisquick box to make a simple batch of pancakes.  From this mixture I removed 1/3 cup of batter, put it in a small bowl and added 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of Hershey's Dark Cocoa, stirring both in well to make a darker batter.

 I warmed up the Griddle (I use a Cuisinart Griddler - love it!) and, using a small spoon, dipped it into the dark batter and carefully dropped batter onto the hot surface to make eyes and a mouth.  Wrong!  Don't do this unless you want pancakes with a bit of a sneer.  

Okay, I put the spoon in the sink, and grabbed a small icing bottle, poured the dark batter into the icing bottle and found this worked much better.  (In my haste, however I grabbed the icing bottle from the Dollar Store and found the tip kept getting clogged, so next time I'm going to use the nicer one that I got from Kitchen Conservatory.  As I said, I was just playing around, you can benefit from my mistakes and be well prepared when you decide to make them.) I formed eyes and a mouth on the Griddler, let them cook for about 30 seconds and then used a 1/4 cup measure to pour a circle of batter on top of this.  I let them cook until bubbles rose to the surface and flipped them over.  Cute!  Even my husband got a laugh out of these.  

(You can see the sneering pancake at the top of this picture.)

The dark batter really doesn't stand out in taste because of the small amount, but what I did taste was really good and I may just consider chocolate-cinnamon pancakes in the future.  I also tried things other than faces like polka dots, stripes, and plaid with only so-so results.  Imagine, though, making Jack-O-Lantern faces on pumpkin pancakes!  The variations are endless and you are only limited by your, or your child's imagination.

Who could possibly resist a breakfast that smiles back at you?

Have fun, and have a great Sunday!

This is linked to:

Saturday Breakfast - Ebelskivers!

I will be the first person to tell you that kitchen gadgets are unnecessary.  That the only two pieces of equipment you'll ever need are a good, sharp knife, and a Microplane grater.  That's it. These two items will allow you to perform almost any task needed in today's kitchen.  But, heaven help me, I love gadgets, from donut machines to the latest little appliance that makes four pies all at once, I find them simply irresistible.

 I christened my newest acquisition this morning -- an Ebelskiver pan for making Danish filled pancakes.  I was pretty chuffed when I picked this up a month or so ago at Williams-Sonoma  for 15% off, then was intensely annoyed when, closer to the holidays it was reduced to 50% off before I'd been able to use it.  At any rate, I've now put it into service, and can't wait to use it again.

There's a bit of a learning curve involved, so don't be surprised if you burn a couple in the first batch, or add too much filling (jelly, say) and have it bubble over and burn on the pan, setting off the smoke alarm, and then raising a huge blister on the thumb of your left hand when you try to rid the pan of the offending pastry, but I digress.  The process is simple if a bit messy, but they go from pan to table in just minutes.  Pressed for time, I decided to use the pancake recipe on the Bisquick box, adding a bit more milk to thin the batter, along with a tablespoon of a granulated sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, and some gratings of orange peel.  For fillings I chose what was easiest to grab - milk chocolate chips from the cabinet above the stove, and blackberry jam because it just happened to be in the front of the refrigerator.

I melted butter in a small dish and brushed each well with an ample amount using a silicone pastry brush.  I poured about a tablespoon of batter into each well and working quickly added various fillings.  It wasn't as easy to center the fillings as I thought it would be, but my skills improved with batch number 2.

Flipping them over was a breeze.  I used a chopstick rather than the official Ebelskiver flipping tool, and it worked great. I just pushed down on the one side and when the opposite side crept up out of the pan, I flipped it over to brown.

A dusting of powdered sugar later, some warm syrup drizzled on top, and I had a tasty breakfast unlike any I've had before.

I'll be trying these again, and soon!  I was delighted to learn that books of recipes are available, so I'll be adding one or two to my bulging cookbook collection and will try recipes from sweet to savory and give you the skinny.  In the meantime, grab yourself a pan and try them for yourself.  I'll be waiting to hear of your success.

Cozy Cinnamon Waffles with Butter Pecan Sauce

Cozy Cinnamon Waffles with Butter Pecan Sauce

Well, there's good news and bad news with the new recipe I tried this morning, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

One of my favorite cookbooks is a presentation of the St. Louis Junior League called St. Louis Days St. Louis Nights.  You'll be seeing a lot of it in the future because I have success cooking from this book one recipe after another.  So, I thought, it stood to reason then that the subsequent publication of the [same] Junior League, Meet Us in the Kitchen would be equally good.  (Do you follow my reasoning here?)  Well, so far it hasn't.

But there's good news and bad news.  This morning I decided to try a new waffle recipe that, while on paper sounded very good, in reality was just so-so.  As you can see from the picture above, the waffles were a bit, well, limp.  I for one do not care for limp in the morning, and so decided I would not make this recipe again.  BUT!  The Butter Pecan Sauce was delicious! 

Now in the recipe (shown below) it does have a bit of brandy.  You may question the use of brandy in the morning (as did I), but honestly it served more to enhance the flavor of the sauce than to overwhelm it, and my guess is the potentially negative aspect of the brandy would be offset by the caffeine in the coffee (You DO have coffee, right?).  So trust me when I tell you that I did not find myself stumbling around or slurring my words as the result of this sauce.  I did find it delicious overall, and absolutely wonderful on a scoop of pumpkin ice cream.  Yes, I did have a scoop of ice cream for breakfast, but it was solely for the benefit of the blog. Solely.  I wouldn't lie to you.  My guess is it would be equally yummy on Butter Pecan ice cream (if you happen to like butter pecan ice cream, which I don't, but my husband does and he agreed with me).  So, while I didn't find a great new waffle recipe, I did find a rather elegant sauce for dessert, so all was not lost.

If you would like to try this sauce on waffles, let me just say that in my experience (and it is considerable), you can make wonderful waffle variations using the recipe on the box of Bisquick.  Last month I made delicious pumpkin waffles by simply adding 1/3 cup of solid pack pumpkin and about 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the recipe on the box and the waffles came out the way they should, i.e. NOT limp, and were delicious. So, if you do indeed want "cozy cinnamon waffles" go with the Bisquick recipe and add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.  Do it.  It will give you an excuse to try this wonderful sauce.  And then try it on ice cream.  Go ahead, no one is looking.