Mevrouw Cupcake

 

Last night we went for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, then biked to the video store and picked up the 3-for-10 euro special and moseyed on home for a double-feature evening on the couch. Today we're both at home, having taken the day off, we're hiding out and lying low---our way of celebrating 3 years of enjoying each others company. Today is our weekend during the week, so we slept in and ate brunch so late in the afternoon, that it could almost be considered an early dinner. Ain't love grand?

I had to take time out from this festival of love, though, to talk biscuits; because this afternoon I just happened to make the best buttermilk biscuits that I have EVER made, and I've made a lot buttermilk biscuits in my life, none of which you'd call shoddy.

When I awoke this morning afternoon, I knew that biscuits were on the menu, and that was that. Once I finally got to the kitchen and started poking around, I also realized that I had some surplus lard, from a small-scale lard rendering adventure that I'd embarked on this week. Well, my mother always taught me, "waste not, want not," so I sidled on up to my PC and starting perusing my blog clippings for a biscuit recipe calling for a butter/shortening mix, and thus offering me the possibility of substituting the shortening for my lard. In a few clicks of the mouse, I was face-to-screen with The Breakfast of Champions, and one fine looking buttermilk biscuit. Bingo!

If you love food and you love to cook, then you know that there is a certain drive that can sustain the ongoing quest for an elusive flavor or scent of some delicious morsel from our childhood or a memorable meal eaten in adulthood, and it's serious business. My obsession with biscuits began at my mother's table, but with age and expatriation, my hankering for the perfect buttermilk biscuit has grown. Now, I need look no further, for Cook's Illustrated in their infinite wisdom has done all the work for me.

You can find this fabulous recipe over at Nook & Pantry (THANK YOU Amy!!!); the only things I changed were to substitute the shortening for self-rendered organic lard, and to cut the biscuits with a knife, because I didn't want a scrape of biscuity goodness to go to waste. In the future, I might consider playing around with a all-purpose/cake flour mix, but for now, I'm more then satisfied (and I still have 6 biscuits left).

A History of Biscuit Making with Mevrouw Cupcake:

Buttermilk Cornmeal Biscuits

Strawberry Shortcakes with a Twist

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits