The Best Buttermilk Biscuits You'll Ever Make!

Dinners this week have all been pretty laid back.  Not much cooking has been going on.  Sunday I baked some chicken thighs and made mashed potatoes and gravy, served with corn.  Monday we had leftovers of that for dinner.  And last night we had leftover sausage gravy with these homemade buttermilk biscuits.  

I don't cook much when my husband isn't home, which is okay with me!

A few years ago I was at our local library and I stumbled upon this cookbook.  

Cooking Up a Storm

It has lots of old fashioned recipes and fun stories to go along with it.  I liked it so much, that I bought it and have made a few recipes from it.  But let me tell you, I found one recipe in it that is the BEST recipe I've ever stumbled upon for Buttermilk Biscuits.  Look no further if you've been on the hunt for a good biscuit recipe!  It's in this book!  

I didn't have any fresh buttermilk on hand, but I did have a can of dry buttermilk, so I mixed some of that up and used it in place of the fresh.  The biscuits still turned out just as good as ever!  If you decide to use reconstituted buttermilk or even regular milk with vinegar or lemon juice in it, to sour it, you will have to use less.  Real buttermilk has a thick consistency, and the other two options are thinner, so you have to gauge by feel how much liquid to put in.  If you use real buttermilk, then just put the amount in the recipe and they will come out perfect!

Buttermilk Biscuits

As seen in the cookbook Cooking Up a Storm (Good Old Days)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sift together:

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Cut in:

5 tablespoons butter or 1/4 cup lard (I always use lard)

Add and lightly mix (25 strokes only):

3/4 cup buttermilk or regular milk mixed with 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice

Turn dough onto floured board and knead gently for about 30 seconds.  Pat dough to a thickness of 1/2 inch.  Cut with biscuit cutter or a glass.  Bake on greased cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes.  

    Note: It is best to stack to cookie sheets, one on top of the other, to prevent over-browning the biscuit bottoms.

Breakfast for dinner was a quick and easy meal to put on the table with leftover sausage gravy over hot biscuits and scrambled eggs with cheese on top.

Total cost for this dinner: about $2

Busy Bee in The Kitchen

One of the ways I save money is by grinding my own flour for baking.  When stores have their case lot sales, I'll buy a couple of 50 lb bags of whole wheat for under $20 each and then use them all year to grind into wholesome whole wheat and make homemade bread and other goodies with.  I do still buy white flour to use in things like cookies and other baked goods, but I buy that during the case lot sales too at about $8 for a big 20 lb bag.

Yesterday I spent the day baking.  I made a double batch of my 

Awesome Whole Wheat Bread and turned that into three loaves and 10 big cinnamon rolls.  

 I stuck one of the loaves of bread in the freezer to use next week and kept the other two out for this week's use.  The cinnamon rolls acted as an after school snack for my boys, dessert for my husband and breakfast for my boys this morning.  We still have two leftover that will be snacked on today as well.

To make the cinnamon rolls, I melted 1 Tablespoons of butter and spread that out onto the rolled out dough.  Then I sprinkled with brown sugar until it was covered lightly and then added a thin layer of cinnamon and a couple of handfuls of raisins.  I then rolled them up and cut them and let them rise in the pan.  They were then baked along with the bread for about 25 minutes.  Once they were out and had cooled for a few minutes I made a very simple glaze out of 2 Tablespoons melted butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, a dash of vanilla and a couple tablespoons of milk.  Easy, frugal and delicious!

Total cost for 3 loaves of bread and 10 big cinnamon rolls: 

About $2

While I was in the kitchen, I took out a dozen eggs and boiled them.  I like to keep boiled eggs in the fridge for quick breakfasts before the boys get on the bus in the morning.  My daughter also likes to snack on them during the day.  At under .11 cents each, they make for a thrifty handy snack to have on hand.

Total cost for 12 boiled eggs: $1.30

We had a busy night last night.  The kids wanted to head over to the library for a Planes Party at 6pm and I had a Church activity to be to at 7pm, so we quickly ate these Indian Tacos and Tostadas and were out the door.  

To make these, I found 6 rhodes rolls in my freezer, took them out and let them rise and then fried them right before serving, I also fried some corn tortillas for tostada shells.  Topped with some leftover homemade refried beans, ground venison from the freezer seasoned with taco seasoning, a little bit of shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, guacamole, sour cream and hot sauce.  All that makes for a filling dinner on the cheap!

Total cost for Indian Tacos and Tostadas with leftovers for lunch: about $3

Thanks for stopping by!

Pumpkin Yeast Bread

I had some leftover canned pumpkin in my fridge the other day, so I decided to make some pumpkin bread with it. I wasn't in the mood for the traditional quick bread type of pumpkin bread and we were getting low on sandwich bread, so I decided to make some pumpkin yeast bread. Easy enough, I just used my regular white bread recipe and substituted one cup of the water called for in that recipe for one cup of canned pumpkin! Pumpkin is pretty moist, so I figured it would work out, and I was right! You can't really taste a difference, so it doesn't taste pumpkiny, but your adding 6 grams of fiber to the recipe! Plus you get a nice orange color that kids think is pretty cool. If you wanted to use wheat flour to make this bread you could, since my recipe calls for vital wheat gluten and dough enhancer, you'll still get a light fluffy loaf. So, if you have leftover pumpkin that you need to use up, why not try this recipe?!

Pumpkin Yeast Bread

1 cup warm water

2/3 cup sugar

1 ½ tablespoons yeast

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 ½ teaspoons salt

¼ cup oil

1 tablespoon dough enhancer

1/3 cup vital wheat gluten

5 – 6 cups all purpose flour

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the water, sugar and yeast. Let sit until the yeast has proofed, about 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix with dough hook attachment until combined. Then let the mixer knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 – 7 minutes. Turn dough into a greased bowl and cover with a towel, place the bowl in a warm place and let dough rise to double it's size. After it has risen, punch the dough down and divide into two portions. Form loaves with the dough and place into greased bread pans. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until the dough is about an inch above the pan. Once risen, place the bread into a preheated 350° F oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. When done baking remove from pans immediately and let cool on a wire rack. Makes 2 loaves.

With half of my dough I actually made a pan of cinnamon rolls. If you want to do that, roll out half of the dough at a time into a rectangle that is about 1/4 of an inch thick. Spread about 3 tablespoons of melted butter on the dough, followed by about 1/3 cup brown sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Spread evenly, add raisins or nuts if desired and then roll up long ways. Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces and place in a greased dish. Let them rise until doubled and then bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. I didn't frost mine, but if you want them frosted I would use a cream cheese frosting maybe about 4 ounces of cream cheese, 1/4 cup of butter, 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, a tablespoon of milk if needed and maybe some vanilla, about 1/2 teaspoon would work well. I would use that much for the whole batch of bread being turned into cinnamon rolls, so for half a batch just cut that in half. If you wanted them frosted, frost about 5 minutes after you take them out of the oven so that the frosting doesn't melt everywhere.

Now, just so you know, in my picture of the cinnamon rolls you might see some little cinnamon chips on top of them. I put cinnamon chips inside of my rolls and they made a huge mess, so I wouldn't recommend doing that. The filling melted out all over the place and was a gooey mess. So, learn from my mistake and don't do that! :)

Sourdough Bread

A couple of months ago I was reading up on how to make sourdough bread, I was intrigued by the fact that sourdough bread uses absolutely no yeast!! So, I thought that sourdough would be the perfect option for having bread during a situation that you might be living off of food storage and might have run out of yeast. So, I made a starter and let it grow and ferment and sour and now, I have some awesome bread!! All from water and flour. Granted, when I actually make the bread I do add a little oil, sugar and salt, but no yeast at all. And it's so yummy! I encourage all of you to start a sourdough starter, this way you can always make bread, with or without yeast!

Now, I'm not an expert about sourdough, so I'm going to lead you to a website by S. John Ross, who is an expert. You will learn everything you need to know about sourdough, from the feeding and care of your "pet" to the hooch that forms on the top. You can check out his website here. This is the recipe that I used to start my starter and to ultimately make my bread. I have two starters, this way I can have an extra in case one dies, which is pretty unlikely. Plus, we've been enjoying bread weekly and even pizza from the dough!! As you can see from my pictures I shape my dough into baguettes, we like it this way the best, but you can shape it in a regular loaf pan or as a round, it's up to you. It does take a lot of time, but not a lot of hands on time. And when I want to make bread I have to think about it about a day in advance, but that's not that big of a deal. Just read up on how to make the sourdough here and mostly, have fun!

Basil Garlic Sun Dried Tomato Bread

My favorite method of making artisan style breads is using a big pot to bake the bread in. Using this method always gives me an end result that has a crusty crust and chewy inside. I just love the fact that I can make high quality, delicious bread at home and it's just so easy! I'll never again pay $5 a loaf or more on specialty breads. The possibilities are nearly endless when it comes to the flavor combinations that you can make using the basic dough of this bread. I'll soon be trying a rosemary bread! I can't wait!

Basil Garlic Sun Dried Tomato Bread

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons warm water
¼ cup julienne cut sun dried tomatoes in olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped

In a large bowl mix together all of the ingredients until just combined. Let sit, covered with plastic wrap for 4 hours. Sprinkle a fair amount of flour onto a clean surface and plop the dough onto the flour. The dough will be very wet, this is how it should be. Once all of the dough is on the floured surface, fold together in thirds. Then fold the dough in half and shape into a round loaf and sprinkle with more flour. Cover with a towel and let rise for about an hour. Half an hour before the bread should be done rising, place a large oven proof pot with a lid into the oven and preheat to 450° F. Once the pot has preheated in the oven for a half an hour, plop the dough into the pot (it might not look pretty right now, but that is okay) and cover with the lid. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, when done cooking, cool the bread on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it. Enjoy!

Banana Pecan Crumb Bread

This bread is my new favorite banana bread recipe. Seriously, this stuff is so good! Too good for words! I got the idea for this bread from Southern Plate, if you haven't heard of Southern Plate yet, be sure to check out Christy's website, she's got lots of yummy recipes! This banana bread is rich, full of banana flavor and don't even get me started on the pecans. I love pecans! They are my all time favorite nut to be baked with. You must make this bread with the pecans, the only people that shouldn't are the ones that absolutely can't eat nuts. Trust me, don't leave them out unless you have to! A tip when buying nuts is to look over in the produce section, the nuts in the produce section are usually cheaper than the ones that you'll find over by the baking things. This way you can make the bread with the pecans and save a bit of money too! Okay, enough about pecans...

Everyone that tried this bread after I made it thought that it was the best banana bread that they had ever eaten. I'll be entering this one into the fair this year, hoping for a blue ribbon! Try it out, you won't be sorry.

Banana Pecan Crumb Bread

3 large bananas
2 cups sugar
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup chopped pecans

Crumb Topping

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350° F.
In an electric mixer mix together bananas and sugar until the banana is completely mashed. Add in the butter, eggs and vanilla extract and mix until well creamed. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Mix in the buttermilk and then finally add in the pecans and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, combine the crumb toppings with a pastry cutter or fork. It should form a nice crumb. Pour half of the bread batter into two greased bread pans. Then layer half of the crumb topping on top of that bread batter. Pour remaining batter over the crumb mixture and then top with the rest of the crumb topping. Bake for 50 – 60 minutes in the 350° F preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Yummy To The Tummy White Bread

Every now and then I mix things up with our bread and make this instead of my whole wheat bread recipe. This bread is soft, sweet and doesn't stick around for long! Our favorite way to enjoy this bread is making egg salad sandwiches out of it. If your family is a white bread loving family and you've been wanting to start making your own bread, this is a great recipe! To learn more about why I use vital wheat gluten and dough enhancer in my breads, read my Awesome Whole Wheat Bread recipe. In this recipe, if you don't want to invest in those two ingredients, you could replace the all-purpose flour with bread flour and leave out the dough enhancer and vital wheat gluten. Your bread won't turn out as soft and delicious as my original recipe, but it will still be yummy.

Yummy To The Tummy White Bread

2 cups warm water
2/3 cup sugar
1 ½ tablespoons yeast
1 ½ teaspoons salt
¼ cup oil
1 tablespoon dough enhancer
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
5 – 6 cups all purpose flour

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the water, sugar and yeast. Let sit until the yeast has proofed, about 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix with dough hook attachment until combined. Then let the mixer knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 – 7 minutes. Turn dough into a greased bowl and cover with a towel, place the bowl in a warm place and let dough rise to double it's size. After it has risen, punch the dough down and divide into two portions. Form loaves with the dough and place into greased bread pans. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until the dough is about an inch above the pan. Once risen, place the bread into a preheated 350° F oven and bake for 30 minutes. When done baking remove from pans immediately and let cool on a wire rack. Makes 2 loaves.

Double Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

If I wasn't the one that just baked this, I would tell you that this bread absolutely does not have zucchini in it. But, I did just bake this and guess what? There are 3 cups of zucchini in this recipe!! So, if your still looking for recipes to use up all of your zucchini, this is the bread for you! Trust me, don't tell your family that it has zucchini in it, they will gobble it up and not even notice!! My husband told me that I could make this bread every day and he wouldn't be sick of it. It's that good! I got this recipe from Tasty Kitchen, but I didn't add in the spices like the original baker did. I wanted a pure chocolate flavor in mine. Please do try this, it's so good!!




Double Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups zucchini, shredded
2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350° F.
In an electric mixer, mix together the oil, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Once combined add in zucchini and mix well. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix well. Mix in the chocolate chips and then pour into two greased bread pans (I use baker's joy). The batter will be very thin, this is how you want it to look. Bake in the preheated oven for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Jalapeno Cheese Bread

My husband loves jalapeño cheese bread and had been asking me to make some for the longest time. I had tried many times to make it, but it never turned out the way I wanted it to. Until I finally figured out that cheese chunks instead of shredded cheese was the way to go! Now we get big pockets of cheese!! This bread is killer good and I'm sure you'll love it!

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

3 cups warm water

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

6 1/2 cups flour

½ cup jarred jalapeño slices
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese chunks, about .5" each

Mix all of the ingredients together, only until all of the flour is integrated, about 1 minute. DO NOT KNEAD!! The dough will be wet and sticky, this is how it is supposed to look. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit unrefrigerated for 2 hours. Cut the dough into three pieces, one for each loaf. If you only want one loaf, then cut off enough for one loaf and place the rest of the dough in the refrigerator for up to 7 days. To make a loaf of bread take the piece of dough that you just took out and fold the dough in half once, and then in thirds. DO NOT KNEAD!! Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. After resting place the dough into a heavily floured tea towel and cover. Let sit until double in size. To bake the bread, place a large oven proof pot that has a lid in the oven, turn the oven on to 450° F. After the pot has sit in the oven for 30 minutes to heat, take the pot out and plop the dough into the pot, it's okay if the dough looks a little weird. Cover the pot with the lid and place in the 450° F oven to bake for 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before cutting into the bread. Enjoy! Makes three loaves.

Special Zucchini Bread

If your like us then you probably have tons of zucchini growing in your garden. Thank goodness for zucchini bread! This zucchini bread is probably the best recipe that I've ever come across. It comes from my mother-in-law, who adds raisins to her zucchini bread. If you took the raisins out it would be a typical zucchini bread recipe, but the raisins add so much more to this bread! They help to keep the bread moist and they add an extra sweetness. This recipe will not disappoint!

If you have too much zucchini and you can't seem to keep up with it, shred it and put it into freezer bags and then pop it in the freezer, this way you'll have zucchini ready to be made into bread that you can use in the winter!

Special Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 ½ cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 ½ cups raisins

Preheat oven to 325° F.
Combine all wet ingredients in an electric mixer and then add all dry ingredients. Mix well and add raisins last. Pour into greased and floured bread pans and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let bread sit for 15-20 minutes in pans before removing and cooling on a wire rack. Makes two loaves.

Awesome Whole Wheat Bread

I'm pretty into food storage, partly because I'm LDS and partly because I just want to be prepared and have food in my house in case something happens. You never know when you might not be able to buy food! What if your husband lost his job or there was a big snow storm and you were stuck in your house for days? So, I store food in my house. Not a whole ton, but I do have some just in case. And what's food storage if you don't know how to use it? So, I'll be featuring some of my food storage recipes along with my regular recipes. This recipe however is so good, you'll want to eat this bread every day! Who knew food storage could be so tasty?! When I make this recipe at home I grind my wheat kernels in my wheat grinder to make the flour for this bread. This way I have the freshest flour I could possibly have! If you don't have fresh flour, store bought whole wheat flour will work perfectly fine! But, if you are going to become a serious bread baker and bake all of the bread that your family eats, as I do, you might want to consider getting yourself a wheat grinder! I highly recommend the one that I have, which is the Nutrimill! Check it out!

There are a couple of ingredients in this recipe, namely dough enhancer and vital wheat gluten that you may not have heard of before, that is unless you live in Utah or Idaho. So, I'm going to introduce them to you! Dough enhancer is a product that helps to rise your breads higher and better than if you didn't have it in your dough, it also helps to prolong the life of your bread. Vital wheat gluten adds more gluten to your dough to make it softer and more delicious! You can buy both products here or you can try looking for them in your local grocery store in the baking section. You won't regret buying them at all, you'll use them in all of your bread doughs once you try them once. Trust me!

Awesome Whole Wheat Bread

2 cups warm water
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon yeast
1/3 cup oil
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons dough enhancer
5 to 7 cups whole wheat flour

In a large mixer (such as a Kitchen Aid or Bosch type) combine the water, yeast and honey. Let sit for a few minutes to give the yeast a chance to start working. Add the salt, oil, vital wheat gluten, dough enhancer and 3 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour. Continue to add more flour until the dough does not stick to the side of the bowl and does not feel sticky to the touch. Knead for 10 minutes in mixer. When dough has finished kneading let it rise once until doubled in bulk. Punch down dough and divide it into 2 pieces and form into loaves and set in greased bread pans. Let dough rise in warm, but not on oven until it is about an inch over the pan. Turn oven on to 350° F and set timer for 30 minutes, do not preheat the oven. When done baking remove from pans immediately and let cool on a wire rack. Makes 2 loaves.

Have you tried this recipe? Come and rate and review it over at Tasty Kitchen!