Yum-o. I always only got hot cross buns at easter. Thanks. What up with Franken. i guess it’s kinda close, huh?

oooo, I want that recipe!!!

your own self, huh? great job. yum-o

they’re , like, huge!

Me too! That looks like something the world’s worst baker, me, could make.

Have to disagree SD. I am most definitely the worlds worst baker/cook. and there is no way on God’s green earth I could make that.

ahem(straightening my ‘bread diaries’ cooking hat here) – I’m going to bet it’s a yeast dough but the question is(as the Wicked Witch of the West put it)…does it have eggs in it? Milk? Both? Butter? This must be handled del-i-cately…lest we ruin the spell…..

I gots a question for ya. I have a old cookbook, before instant or packaged anything, that talks about cutting in shortening. Do they still make Crisco? Do people still use it? I substituted unmelted butter as one substitution piece said to do and my baking powder biscuits didn’t turn out as good I as I would have liked. Any hints?

Dragon, dearie, melting the butter was your problem. there is an article on the NYT food section on-line which discusses the voo-doo of butter – never let it get warm. Cut it in while cold.

You can still get Crisco. I don’t think there is a good substitute for shortening, it has magical properties… or maybe it’s just the ether.

Sorry!! i read melted. As you were…

Crisco is just veggie shortening. There is a huge difference between ‘hard’ shortenings(like butter and lard – stuff that stays hard at room temps) and veggie shortening. Like, I can’t make chocolate chip cookies fit to even eat with all butter – I have to make them half butter and half veggie shortening so that at least the cookies won’t shatter. I make my biscuits with butter, but I’m not sure when you say “didn’t turn out as good as i would have liked” what you mean. Did not rise as much? Weren’t flakey? the rising may be that your baking powder has lost it’s oomph(I keep mine in the fridge for that reason) flakiness depends on, frankly, the warmth of your hands. I have horrifically cold hands, so when I make baking powder biscuits, the butter doesn’t melt and they come up flakey – the DH has ‘hot hands’ (heh), so his don’t come out as flakey
-

Morning pups

SD
I love the toobZ

Shortening vs Butter
I found this on the food network: Substitution: Substitution: BUTTER 1 cup (2 sticks; 16 Tbsp) = 1 cup margarine OR 7/8 cup vegetable oil, lard or vegetable shortening OR 4/5 cup strained bacon fat OR 3/4 cup strained chicken fat

From Land O’Lakes: Shortening:
1 cup butter or margarine can be substituted for 1 cup shortening. When using shortening in place of butter or margarine, 1 tablespoon milk or water for each 1/2 cup shortening used may need to be added. DO NOT substitute vegetable oil for shortening when recipe calls for melting the shortening.

Mmmmmm…..buns.

Hot cross buns and not even Easter !!!
Thanks PW !!

My attitude about hot cross buns is – who ever said they were only for Easter????? Dang, I could eat those things 365!! and, ahem..PW…oh, Miss PW…(recipe, please)

The butter was not hard as if I had just taken it out of the fridge. The biscuits didn’t rise very much and weren’t flaky. I was the only thing flaky. Edible but not very satisfying. Crisco is veggie shortening? I always thought it was sorta like lard.

Bravo! More useful baking tips here.

We sure do spend alot of time talking about food here !! LOL

I think I saw both of those. I think my biggest mistake was using butter at room temp. Not hard, not soft. Spreadable. Which brings up a second question. What’s the proper way to cut in shortening. I used a fork and just kept smushing it in the flour until it was absorbed.

Sounds like your biggest issue was the baking powder. That stuff just does not keep its oomph for all that long and if you aren’t someone who bakes a lot with it(and hence doesn’t have to replace yours very often), then it ‘off gases’ and looses it’s rising ability. Try this – if you’ve got any vinegar in the house. Put a little bit of vinegar in the cup and put in a little of your baking powder and see if it foams up. If so, then your baking powder is still good; if not, pitch it and get some new from the store. I’d also suggest doing what I do and once opened, stick it in a zip lock bag or other closeable container and stick it in the fridge. it stays good longer.

I’m hungry (don’t know why) gotta go and get some grub !!

Later all!

People used lard before there was Crisco. Some people still do use lard.

Cut the butter up into little pieces with a knife and put in with the flour and baking powder. I use a pastry blender that looks like this:
http://www.williams-sonoma.com…../index.cfm
Mine actually just has wires on it.
You can get the same effect by using a knife in each hand and criss-crossing them in the flour until the butter becomes smaller pieces…
then add your liquid, stir until a ball forms. Roll out as usual.

LOL!

It depends on what you are making. If you are making pie crusts then you want the butter as cold as you can get it. I have a kitchen tool that just like what my mother and grandmother used. Usually unless the recipe calls for melted or soft, I use cold butter.

Pastry blender picture
basic yeast rolls

Baking powder prolly is the issue. It’s kept in the fridge (I still call it an ice box when talking) but it’s old. No wonder my cornbread hasn’t turned out right either the last couple times. Gonna add a pastry blender to the drawer too. Thanks heaps!!

I don’t care for lard pie crusts. When my mom started using Fluffo shortening her pie crusts were fantastic… really flaky. Later, she started using an oil recipe because it was so much easier. Not bad but not as good as the shortening crusts. I use the oil recipe though, because I’m really lazy.

I can gay-roan-tee you that the local Winn-Dixie and Publix both carry Crisco and lard.

Crisco is now made by Smuckers. It was a result of Proctor & Gamble trying to come up with a substitute for making candles which were then made from animal products.

Thanks PW!

No doubt and tomorrow is grocery store day. Hmmmm, lurvs me some homemade biscuits.

Hey, PW, where’s the bun recipe?

OK…everyone..just like that scene from the George Raft prison flick, bang your coffee cups on the table and say with me, “Rec-i-pee…rec-i-pee”. She’s got to hear us eventually, right?

My friend the baker is bemoaning the fact that Crisco has taken all the trans fats out of their shortening. She says it doesn’t work the same anymore. Thanks for the tip about baking powder, it ’splains a lot!

707. Gotta go find my tin cup.

Are those cranberries in the buns?

Every party has its pooper
That’s why we invited you *g*

Does your baker friend use something else now? If so, what? My grandma used Crisco all her life and she lived to be 96. Can’t be that bad.

FWIW, being from a family filled with good southern cooks, my cousins gave the vote of “Yeah, they’re pretty damn good” to the Pillsbury frozen biscuits a few years ago. This from a family that used to serve sit-down Sunday dinners for 40 plus with fried chicken, country ham, mashed potatos, green beans, creamed peas, scalloped oysters, biscuits and rolls, cream gravy and all made fresh from scratch.

Especially for one person when you really only want one or two biscuits.

I don’t think so; I think that is the candied citron that is used for fruit cakes (sometimes called, interestingly enough, ‘fruit cake mix’ – though in someplaces, it’s referred to as ‘glaceed fruit’ – but I think that also has the preserved red and green cherries in it) – I did a quick and dirty search on ‘hot cross buns recipes’ and another common addition seems to be dried currents and/or raisins.

SD, have you ever eaten dutch oven biscuits? My Mother used to make them now and then to get my Dad out of a grumpy mood. Cooked outside over coals, in a deep, iron dutch oven with hot coals on top of the lid. I’ve never seen such beauties or tasted any bread to match Mama’s biscuits. I tried it once; miserable failure.

Thanks!

I haven’t found a frozen biscuit yet that was any good. Yuk. And I’m an old southern boy who grew up with those Sunday dinners. Mouth waters just thinkin’ about it. I won’t have any problem putting away a dozen biscuits over a couple days. I don’t usually eat regular meals. I graze all day long.

I’ve been using frozen “southern-style” biscuits from Schwan’s for the past several years. They’re tasty and it works good for me since I only do one at a time. Throw it in the oven for the last 24 minutes my chicken is baking and voila!

Actually, those are indeed cranberries — or Craisins, rather — as I couldn’t find any currants.

It’s a standard hot cross bun recipe, complete with egg wash for the golden-brown crust.

It’s getting close to noon here, so all this talk about pie crusts and biscuits is actually makin’ me want creamed chicken on biscuits or chicken pot pie.

Not since I was in the Boy Scouts. At Jamborees nearly every troop had a Dutch oven for biscuits.

oh, and speaking of candied citron(or ‘fruit cake mix’), my experience is that this is a product(like many ’seasonal’ items) that disappears, poof! by New Years, not to be seen again until next Christmas season. And, it doesn’t ‘go bad’, either. So, this week, if you go to the grocery store and see a display of it(and perhaps it is on sale now — woohoo!! Just like all the Chanukah candles etc.), and think you are going to have a hankering for Hot Cross Buns..even if you won’t until the Easter season – it might just be worthwhile(from a stress reduction point) to buy a package or even two and just sticking them on the shelf. That stuff does not go bad and you can use to make..Hot Cross Buns, and cookies(I have a killer bar cookie recipe that calls for that stuff), and even, goodness only knows..fruit cake(ahem…mmm…I think we have a diary about that around here someplace…).

Biscuits are an art form, ’tis true. Then again, most store-bought ready-made anythings aren’t as good as when you do it from scratch yourself. Compare homemade egg pasta to dried or (shudders) ready-made frozen pasta, which is tasteless and rubbery.

mmm, that’s actually on my schedule to do a diary on for tomorrow, Ellie — “Biscuits and stuff to put on ‘em”.

There was a place in San Diego in the early 70s that made chicken pot pies from scratch. We ate there a lot.

Yep, finding cried currents is very difficult. Our Wegmans has a whole six foot display of dried fruits now, and I had to crouch down on my hands and knees and weed around in the back of the bottom shelf to come up with one box of currents.

making me wish i was a boy scout??

oo happy day.

Hi PW. You put up a picture like that and create a ruckus.

SD mMmm I love the homemade chicken pit pie — but not with corn, chicken corn pie is something different.

Orange marmalade or honey is what ya put on ‘em. *g*

What time shall I plan to arrive in NY State??

Gad, I think we’re having a hurricane here. Unusual for a land-locked state.

Here you go! (I took the picture before I frosted them. Also, I couldn’t find any currants, so I used Craisins in their place. Worked out well!)

hahahaha…true, unless you are going for ‘full metal jacket’ dinners using them as a base…or ‘winter strawberry shortcake’. Of course, at our house, there is no such thing as left over biscuits – no matter how many I make, they get turned into main course, dessert and anything else.

Right on all counts, Toby!

Any time you want, kiddo; just give me time enough to change the sheets on the extra bed downstairs. :)

Pie! Loo Hoo told me to do turkey pot pie with leftovers. I did, and it was gooooood.
I have a free turkey in the freezer, left over from the Thanksgiving promos. I was just thinking of taking that big bad bird out to thaw so we could make it for New Years Eve.
But, since I’m a little too much of that with the mashed potatoes and stuffing menu, I’m thinking of alternatives, like rice and maybe Indian spices. Something like that.

Elliott’s creamed chicken on biscuits sounds divine. Haven’t had that in years. Might even make me cheat on bein’ a vegetarian.

Demi..if you roast the bird with Indian spices, you will have (not to lack respect for the bird, mind you, because it will taste fantastic)just the best stuff to make turkey soup with. OMG!!! What the DH and I do quite often is roast a bird, make a meal and slice and freeze the rest. Then we use the drippings in the pan and the carcass to make turkey soup. Oh, with Indian spices, that will taste amazing…cure anything that ails you, believe me.

I won’t tell anyone. *g*

Oh, with Indian spices, that will taste amazing…cure anything that ails you, believe me.

Don’t you mean, curry anything that ails you?

There is a place near Portland Oregon that has been serving Chicken & dumplings for decades ……. some of the best I have ever had…… The dinning room overlooks the Sandy River.
Tad’s Chicken & Dumplings

I did a southwestern version with cornbread dumplings last week. It was very tasty, but just something about the creamed version that is more comforting for me.

Ooooooh, yum! I’m trying to imagine what the turkey stock would be like, done that way. Normally most roasting birds of any sort wouldn’t make good stock birds — unless you wanted a lightly-flavored broth, so you didn’t overwhelm the flavor of subtle things such as morels, should you cook with them — but this would make a broth or stock that would have the Soup Man himself swooning. (By the way, there really is a Soup Nazi and he’s gone national; his soups are very good, and his ingredients list for a ’simple’ chicken soup includes tumeric, if I’m not mistaken.)

Well, there’s only three of us living here. So, the main reason for roasting the bird would be to freeze little baggies of it. We did that a few years ago, labeled…white only, dark and white, etc. I used that for months. So, I wouldn’t put the spices on the bird while it cooked, but I like your idea of waiting until we take the bird out of the pan and then doing the spice thing.
I’ll be having turkey soup, turkey chili, turkey loaf, turkey sandwiches for the entire winter. Just in time for me to put the garden in. (ha ha – a method to my madness.)

Make Turkey enchiladas out of left over turkey. Take the large tortillas and put chopped turkey and shredded cheese in the center, roll up the tortilla and put it into my baking pan. When the pan is full of the rolled up tortillas then pour a can of your choice of enchilada sauce and then top with more cheese. Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

It is so simple that the kids can make it…… serve with sour cream….

*g*

No, no substitute, she just grumbles into her batter about it.

Yep, I love a turkey for that reason; you can get so much out of it.

that does sound good.

Not that I’m doing some diary whoring or anything but I’m upstairs!

*g*

Katymine – a woman after my own heart, but here’s an even faster way and you don’t have to start the oven – same thing, but use an electric frying pan. Before you put the rolled up tortillas in the pan, pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce or even just canned tomatoes into the bottom of the fry pan, put in the tortillas and then put the rest of the sauce over the top(cheese too, if you wnat)and close the lid. Cook on low for about 20-30 min, until it is all bubbly. Great stuff.

Also, cranberry orange relish on top of the buttery bisquits, mmmmmm.

ahem..we are all kindly invited upstairs to Dakine’s place, where we can flog the CIA for handing out ‘the little blue pill’ to Afghan warlords in exchange for their (cough)information(cough).

Those were the days of working full time, 45 minute commute and trying to feed 5+ any foster kids who might be there…… The kids would build it until the sauce stage and when I got home would do the sauce & cheese (thank God for a salad shooter) and pop it into the oven……

Now I make a tiny 8×8 pan….

Good idea. I’ll add that to my list.
Thanks, katy.

Comin’ right up!