My husband rates restaurants on ice quality....I rate restaurants on bread quality. Don't tell, but I have been known to drive through KFC just to order a biscuit and a side of mashed potatoes and gravy. Shhhhh......
Growing up, my mom often made her Grandmother Spencer's Cloud Biscuits. I remember always having them alongside beef stew. But my favorite was when she would make them into Cinnamon Biscuits; which are like cinnamon rolls but made with a biscuit dough instead of yeast dough. They aren't as neat and tidy as a traditional cinnamon roll, but they are tender and deliciously comforting.
As much as I love Cloud Biscuits, today I want to share a different biscuit recipe that is kind of a semi-homemade biscuit. It is especially great for Cinnamon Biscuits because the dough is just a bit sturdier than a traditional biscuit dough and easier to handle. I found this recipe on allrecipes and haven't changed a thing!
FYI - I made one full recipe and used half for regular biscuits and half for Cinnamon Biscuits {hence the title of this post}. This recipe is great for beginners and is REALLY yummy! It takes almost a whole box of Bisquick, a package of yeast (I use jar yeast), some sugar and some Crisco.
First, I stirred those yummies all together, minus the warm water.
Then I cut in the shortening....if you've never done it before this just means you cut the shortening up into little pieces that are almost blended in to the dry ingredients. If you don't have a pastry cutter like this, just use a fork. When making biscuits you don't want to use a mixer because it will over-mix the dough and make tough biscuits - which might as well be a curse word. Can you hear it?
After cutting in the shortening, your mixture will look like this. Notice it's not smooth, just lumpy and begging for some kind of liquid. It's coming, don't worry.
Because of my great fear of tough biscuits, I barely mix in the warm water (just hot water out of the tap) and pour the whole glob out on the counter where I pat it into an adorable little 1 inch deep rectangle to cut into biscuits. This dough is not very sticky, so I didn’t add any flour. If you are using a different recipe, you will want to pat or roll your dough out on a lightly floured surface so that it won’t stick.
I grew up using a jelly jar to cut biscuits – they are smaller than usual, but a perfect little biscuit size. Happiness.
Put these little beauties on a cookie sheet, I ended up rearranging mine so they touched on the sides. Brush the tops with some melted butter [optional, but a great idea] and bake for 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees.
Now for the Cinnamon Biscuits:
I do use a rolling pin for these. I want my dough to be as close to a rectangle shape as possible and somewhere between 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick; depending on how sturdy my dough is. Once I get it all rolled out I spread 1/2 stick of softened butter all over it. Then I sprinkle it with white sugar, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon. [I'm not sure how much, but if you pressed me I would say 1/4 - 1/3 cup of each sugar and about a Tablespoon of cinnamon; but don't press]. I sprinkle sugar until there are no wettish spots of butter, don't be skimpy with the cinnamon. You could do all sorts of things here - chocolate chips, nuts, cocoa powder.....but nothing compares to cinnamon.
Now you start rolling. The trick here is to keep the roll tight, but not tear your dough or press all the good stuff out. Let me just say I have had disastrous Cinnamon Biscuit experiences where the biscuits are ugly and all the filling squishes out. I just get it all in the pan and scrape the fallen filling on top - it always works out in the end. This step is what makes cinnamon biscuits difficult. If your dough is really sticky use the flat part of a knife or spatula dipped in flour to loosen up the dough from the counter as you are rolling it up.
Do your best to seal it up at the edge.
And cut it into pieces a little bit over 1 inch wide. I love that little tool behind the cinnamon log. I use it to cut cinnamon biscuits and rolls and to loosen dough up from the counter - it's good for lots of other things too.
Gently place the Cinnamon Biscuits in a pie plate that has been sprayed with Pam, you will have to reshape them a bit. I let these sit covered in the frigde overnight, then sit out the next morning so they weren't fridge cold.
Then baked them at 375 for 18 minutes and topped them with vanilla icing.
Feather Light Biscuits
from Allrecipes
Looks yummy!! I don't typically like Bisquick biscuits, but I might have to give this a try.
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