Rosemary Honey Winter Biscuits
I know it’s not cute when I pat myself in the back, but this is truly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever made.
Footnote: Make sure you give the recipe a read before starting. There are some particularities that you don’t want them to take you by surprise! The Rosemary & Butter mixture should rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours before using.
Easy and quick to put together (you can make the brown butter, rosemary & honey mixture DAYS ahead), it is the thing I would 100% recommend you to make during these cold, winter mornings.
Highly recommend eating with butter, fig preserve and / or a salty, mature cheese, like parmegiano or aged manchego, but honestly, these alone with a hot cup of coffee are perfect. Just make sure you warm them up in the oven before digging in and you’re golden.
ingredients:
3 cups (435g) AP Flour
1/2 tbsp (6g) baking powder
1 tbsp kosher salt + more for sprinkling on top.
2 large eggs (One for the dough, the other for brushing on top).
50ml heavy cream
50g sour cream
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
12g freshly & finely chopped rosemary
2 sticks of butter
1 cup honey
1 ice cube
1/2 cup (approx) sugar in the raw or demerara sugar
instructions:
Melt 1 stick of butter in a skillet and cook until it’s bubbly, fragrant and the color changes to rich brown. Make sure you swirl the pan & stir the bottom with a spatula to make sure none of the milk solids are burning. When reaching the right colour, pour on a heat resistant bowl. (Have your rosemary already finely chopped and your two ice cubes at the ready).
Into the hot, melted butter, add your finely chopped rosemary and start stirring immediately, as the water content inside the rosemary is gong to create intense foaming and bubbling. Continue stirring for about a minute. The rosemary will release all of it’s aromas, then drop in your two ice cube to cool down the butter. Keep stirring until the cube is dissolved.
Add to the bowl your cup of honey, and using a whisk start stirring until everything is well combined.
Store in the fridge to fully cool (The colder it becomes the better). 2 hours minimum but it will last in the fridge for up to three days.
Preheat your oven to 420F
In a large bowl, combine your flour, salt & baking powder.
Cube your second stick of butter into smaller pieces and drop into the dry ingredients so that each piece is coated in flour. Using your hands, and working quickly so that the butter doesn’t melt, start pinching the pieces of butter with your fingers and thumbs, so that you’re left with flat, medium pieces of butter. These can vary in size but try not having them too small. These pieces of cold butter will be the ones that give your biscuits with beautiful layered, flaky hight! If you ever feel while working that your butter is getting warm and disappearing into the flour, stop working it and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes to fully cool before continuing working.
Take out your honey, rosemary mixture from the fridge and start drizzling into the flour. As it lands on the flour, shake the bowl as much as possible, so that the streaks of honey / rosemary get immediately coated with flour and distributed all over the bowl. This is important! Doing this will ensure that the flour is hydrating evenly and will allow the biscuits to have beautiful pockets of fat and flavour. Once you’re done, don’t use your hands to mix anymore, switch to a metal spoon and fluff everything around gently. Set back in the fridge if necessary to keep everything cold.
In a small bowl, combine one egg, the cream, apple cider vinegar and yogurt and mix well.
Drizzle the egg / cream mixture into the flour, again, shaking the bowl as it lands to make sure it’s combining seamlessly.
Once you’re done, and you’ve shaken the bowl thoroughly, you’ll notice the mixture now looks a bit like wet sand. At this point, you’ll want to turn the bowl onto a clean work surface and gently (and very briefly) knead with your hands and a bench scraper.
You’ll feel that the dough feels too dry and shaggy, this is normal! Using a bench scraper (avoid using your hands in this step) start pressing down on the mixture. Then, once you have a pile of shaggy dough, that has come together even in the slightest, slice it the middle and stack half of the dough on top of the other half and press down again. This you’ll do several times, maybe 10 or 15. you’ll see that as you’re doing this, the dough starts coming together! It might take time, but what you’re doin here, is kneading by stacking the dough onto itself in several instalments (Thus simulating what’s referred to as “lamination”) . This is what makes for a beautiful, layered flakey, tall biscuit. Be patient. The dough will take time to hydrate and combine, but you will get there.
What you don’t want to do is start using your hands and kneading in all directions. This will destroy the structure of the biscuits and will toughen them). If you’ve done this more than 10 or 15 times and it still hasn’t even come together in the slightest, start drizzling in very small splashes of ice cold water to help it come together little by little. You don’t want to over hydrate the dough.
Once it has come together, roughly shape into a rectangle, cover with plastic and let rest in the fridge. If there are some spots that still feel a bit floury and dry, make sure everything is nicely packed in the plastic and it will come together in the fridge. The dough continues to hydrate in this important resting stage. (The dough can rest in the fridge for 30 minutes but you can stop here and bake it the next day. You can also freeze this dough for up to 8 weeks, just let thaw overnight in the fridge before baking).
Take out the cold dough from the fridge and cut into squares. Measure your rectangle so that you get between 6 or 8 biscuits, depending on the size you want them in (Just try not making them too small). Once you’ve cut them into squares you’ll want to then cut out the very edges of the outer pieces. You’ll see that hen you do this, you expose the layers you created during all your stacking. This will help the biscuits rise evenly in the oven without opening up like a book. Save the very outer edges you’ve cut out of all your biscuits, and gently press together for an additional, not as pretty but equally as delicious biscuit (This I call the chef’s treat).
Place the biscuits on a lined baking sheet and in a small bowl combine your second egg with a bit of water. Brush the tops of each biscuit with the egg wash and then sprinkle a generous amount of sugar in the raw and then a light sprinkling of Kosher salt. This will give the biscuits a lovely crunchy top.
Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tops are beautiful golden brown, toasty colour.
After taking out, let cool if you can on a wire wrack for 10 to 20 minutes. Store covered on the counter for 3 to 4 days.
