I recently came to the realization that I’m in the minority among my friends for eating bread unadorned. I can understand if the bread is plain like baguette or sourdough. They are good canvas for spreads or jam or toppings or butter. However, if the bread is already enriched with dried fruit or nuts or herbs or cheese, why not savour it as is? I remember I once brought in some parsley cheese scones to the office and all were left untouched. Apparently without pats of butter to spread on the scones, they were deemed unappealing. Alas you miss out! Those scones were so tender, cheesy, and flavourful!
I made a batch of Buttermilk Biscuits with Parsley & Sage and brought them to the office this week. The taste of these biscuits can absolutely stand on its own with herbaceous sage, flakiness from butter, richness from heavy cream, and tanginess from buttermilk. But! This time I learned my lesson. To entice my tasters, I served them with a pot of herb cream cheese that I quickly whipped up using scallions, parsley, and thyme. These biscuits were gobbled up quickly.
The recipe for the biscuits comes from Joanne Chang's Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe. It is also available online at James Beard Foundation. The herb cream cheese is inspired by a recent post at 101 Cookbooks. Do I think piling cream cheese on such a rich biscuit over the top? Absolutely. However, between the four different dairy items and four different herbs in every bite, the result is pretty spectacular.
Chang wrote in the recipe that these biscuits are holiday specials at her bakery and she can’t keep enough of them around. I can see why. Sage is often used in holiday dishes like stuffing and it is a natural pairing with winter squash. I can imagine what a tasty addition these biscuits would make for any holiday menu. What I find most interesting about the recipe is the use of butter, heavy cream, and buttermilk. Most non-yeast biscuit recipes fall into a few camps. Cutting cold butter into flour creates flakiness. The dough can be moistened with milk but tangy buttermilk is just so much nicer. Cream biscuit replaces the butterfat in butter with heavy cream and has almost guaranteed tenderness. Chang’s recipe provides the best of three worlds. Even the last bit of scrap dough that I smooshed together baked up to incredibly tender flakey texture. Bravo!
I know it’s only August and talk of Thanksgiving is a little premature. Well, us Canucks celebrate in mid October so I’m not being totally silly. I think I can check off one item from my Thanksgiving menu!
