Cheesy Garlic Biscuits

Tonight was a lazy dinner night. So lazy, I'm surprised we didn't order out. The next best thing was throwing some frozen spinach and cheese ravioli in a pot. As I can't stand the thought of eating pasta without some bread or garlic-oriented on the side, and because I still had some buttermilk left in the fridge, I ended up Googling "buttermilk biscuits."

A recipe that kept popping up was for Cheesy Garlic Biscuits a la Red Lobster. Since I've never eaten at a Red Lobster, I wasn't sure how these would turn out but I like the idea of adding garlic and cheese to the batter and brushing the top with garlic butter. As this recipe called for a Bisquick base, I ended up combining the recipe with another buttermilk biscuit recipe that would allow me to make everything from scratch.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup cold butter or margarine
1 1/4 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
3/4 cup buttermilk

Topping
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon garlic salt

DIRECTIONS
In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and garlic powder. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs (I worked in the butter with my hands). Add the cheese and toss. Stir in buttermilk just until moistened.



Instead of rolling out the dough and using a biscuit cutter, I used my cookie scoop to form somewhat even mounds by piling two scoops on top of one another:


While the biscuits baked at 425 degrees, I combined the melted butter, minced garlic and salt to form a garlic butter sauce to be brushed on the biscuits at the five minute mark.

After baking them for eight more minutes, the biscuits were ready to come out of the oven:


Andrew really liked the biscuits and while I thought they tasted good enough to have two, they weren't anything special. I think I was anticipating something more from all the cheddar cheese that I threw in but all the flavors were very subtle.

Amish Friendship Bread

Last night was a baking first for me - making Amish Friendship Bread with a starter that Andrew's mom gave me.

What makes this bread unusual is the fact that you use a yeast starter that is given to you by someone else (technically you can make it self, but that ruins the friendship concept!) Over a ten day period, you mush the bag each day and let air out (which smells like beer). On Day 6 and the last day, Day 10, you add milk, sugar and flour. The part that skeezes Andrew out is that you don't refrigerate the starter at all during this process.

Here is the yeast starter below in the ziploc bag on Day 10.



Another secret to making the bread is dusting the pans with a cinnamon/sugar mixture instead of flour, and topping it with the same mixture.

Here's the bread fresh out of the oven and ready for my coworkers to try.

It comes out moist and cinnamon-y - more like a coffee cake.

I made a double batch so that I could share the bread with everyone at work, in the name of friendship. Everyone loved it and told me they could smell the bread while rounding the corner near my desk.

The only problem is that it leaves me with 2 starters to share, after a coworker took one - anyone want one? Otherwise, I may be baking forever!