Black Pepper and Bacon Drop Biscuits
"This is one variation of a Cook's Illustrated recipe for Best Drop Biscuits. As usual, details abound in the directions which suits me, a nervous baker, to a tee."
photo by SweetsLady
- Ready In:
- 27mins
- Ingredients:
- 10
- Yields:
-
12 biscuits
- Serves:
- 12
ingredients
- 6 slices bacon
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3⁄4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh coarse ground black pepper
- 1 cup cold buttermilk
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 tablespoons melted butter, for brushing tops of biscuits
directions
- Cut bacon in half lengthwise and then crosswise into 1/4-inch pieces; fry in a skillet over medium heat until crisp, 5-7 minutes. Transfer pieces to a paper towel and cool.
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 475ºF. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Stir in bacon pieces.
- In a medium bowl, combine cold buttermilk and 8 tablespoons melted butter, stirring until butter forms small clumps.
- ***This may look like a mistake, but it's one of the secrets of this recipe. The clumps of butter are similar to small bits of cold butter in biscuits prepared by the traditional method. As the butter melts during baking, the steam helps the biscuits rise and gives them a light and fluffy interior.
- Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated and batter pulls away from sides of bowl.
- Using a 1/4-cup dry measure, scoop level amounts of batter and drop onto baking sheet (biscuits should measure about 2 1/4-inches in diameter and 1 1/4-inch high). Space biscuits 1 1/2-inces apart.
- Bake until the tops are golden brown and crisp, 12-14 minutes.
- Remove from oven and brush tops with melted butter. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.
- Bring on the gravy!
-
### Other variations - omit the bacon and pepper and add:
- Cheddar Scallion - 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese and 1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions.
- Parmesan Rosemary- 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese and 1/2 teaspoons finely minced rosemary.
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Reviews
-
8/29/09: Very good! Easy to make and wonderful flavor and texture. My daughter had bought a package of pepper bacon that needed to be used up so I chose this recipe. Since there was pepper on the bacon, I left out the 1 teaspoon pepper. I did not have buttermilk so substituted non-fat plain yogurt. I only had salted butter so I reduced the salt to a little less than 1/2 teaspoon. I used an ice cream scoop and scooped the biscuits onto a Silpat placed on a cookie sheet. Using the ice cream scoop, I ended up with 8 biscuits. Baked for 12 minutes. Yummy! Thank you for the recipe. Update 8/22/10: These are wonderful biscuits which we enjoy often. I have now made bacon-cheddar, bacon-scallion, and bacon-cheddar-scallion. With the additional ingredients I get 10-12 biscuits. -
Totally delish and divine SusieQ!!! I made a batch of these today and I am making another batch tomorrow, when I will take photos - batteries were flat today!! I have a request for them again - so you can see how good they were! I left the sugar out and also the salt, as we had quite salty Lardons - bacon. I had to sub the buttermilk for natural yoghurt - but it worked very well. Excellent and EASY PEASY recipe! Made for Aussie Swap #14 - what a GREAT team I had! FT:-) -
These were amazing. I used turkey bacon but I followed everything else as written and they turned out beautiful. Everyone in the family loved them and they were all gone before any of them could really cool off. Thank you for sharing. -
Yummy biscuits! I used turkey bacon. They were a little more gooey than I think they needed to be as they didn't pull away from the side, but I think that was my fault with not letting the butter cool enough. Thanks, Susie! :D
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>Hello from suburban Fort Worth, Texas! <br /> <br /><br /> <br />______________________________________________ <br /> <br /> <br />*My rating system defined* <br /> <br />Very few recipes really knock my socks off - I love to cook but am not a gourmet. <br />This said: <br /> <br />***** - met all my expectations in taste & appearance; directions were clear & easy to follow. <br /> <br />**** - fell slightly short of my expectations in taste or appearance or directions were faulty or not completely clear. <br /> <br />*** - mediocre taste and/or appearance; most likely a recipe that I would not use again without much modification. <br /> <br />** - taste and/or appearance was not to my liking; a recipe that I would not attempt to modify or use again. <br /> <br />* - taste was absolutely not to my liking (I can't imagine ever using this rating as I can generally tell by the ingredients if I will enjoy the finished product or not) <br /> <br /> <br /><img src=http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e347/Saturn6666/chefbanner1.jpg alt= /> <br /> <br /> <br /><img src=http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j44/scmurray51/hagshat.jpg alt= /> <br /> <br /><br /> </p>
