Vanilla Biscuits with Cranberry Sauce & Fresh Whipped Cream

  

For a long time, the only cranberry sauce I knew looked like this. And as long as that was my reference point, I resisted it. Hard. I was never really a fan of cranberry juice either, save for when I found out it promoted good, ahem, health, at which point I desperately tried to persuade my taste buds otherwise (to no avail). In any event, it took a long time for cranberries to worm their way into my heart, but they did. And I'm pretty sure they're here to stay.

So when the rows and rows of very shiny cranberries showed up in my grocery store, I knew they needed a vehicle into my stomach, stat. A leisurely perusal through Martha Stewart's Cooking School unearthed the most perfect companion: vanilla biscuits. I've got to hand it to her, Martha has nailed the vanilla biscuit. When these little cylinders of joy come out of the oven, the smell of vanilla and buttery sweetness are like a silent dinner bell (just watch . . . people will show up in the kitchen). 

I prepared the biscuits and cranberry sauce as a dessert, with whipped cream. But if you really want to step up your Thanksgiving game, serve these biscuits and cranberry sauce with your turkey and stuffing. Your guests, with tears in their eyes, will say "Bless you, [your name here]. This is what Thanksgiving has been missing all my life." Verbatim. I promise.

A few notes: Vanilla bean is expensive. You'll probably pay close to $10 for two beans. But seriously, it's Thanksgiving and it's worth it (do you see those flecks of vanilla in the dough?). Pony up.  

Also, if you (like me) are not practiced at biscuit making, you're in for a surprise. The dough doesn't form a ball in the mixing process. When you combine the wet and dry ingredients, stop mixing once you have clumps that look like the below picture. They will come together just barely enough to cut out the biscuits.

Because not everyone owns a biscuit cutter.

Vanilla Biscuits with Cranberry Sauce & Fresh Whipped Cream

adapted very slightly from Martha Stewart's Cooking School cookbook

Biscuits

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbs. cornstarch
3 tbs. sugar
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 vanilla bean
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cups cold buttermilk

2 tbs. heavy cream (for brushing)

sugar for sprinkling

Cranberry Sauce

4-5 oz. fresh or frozen (and thawed) cranberries
2 tbs. sugar (or more to taste)

Whipped Cream 

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tbs. confectioners' sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract 

Whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, incorporate the butter into the dry mix until you have a crumbly mixture (pieces should be the size of small peas). 

Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the beans out using a knife. Mix vanilla bean and vanilla extract into buttermilk and whisk. Add buttermilk to the flour mixture, stirring with a fork until the ingredients are incorporated. As pictured above, the resulting "dough" will remain in separate lumps. Turn dough onto a clean work surface and work the pieces together with your hands, folding the dough onto itself a few times. Work the dough into a rectangle 1 to 1-1/4 inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter (or round measuring cup or cleaned-out soup can), cut out 6 biscuits (for the sixth biscuit, you'll need to gather the scraps together and form the biscuit). Place biscuits onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Chill biscuits in the fridge for 20 minutes before baking. Brush tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 10 minutes and rotate cookie sheet. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and cook for 10 more minutes. Transfer biscuits to a cooling rack. 

Cranberry sauce: While biscuits are baking, put cranberries and sugar in a food processor or mini-chopper and blend until mixture is chunky. Obviously you can add water or extra sugar and blend longer to get a saucier consistency. Do whatever you like. I served the cranberry sauce cold, but this mix can certainly be warmed in a saucepan or the microwave.

Whipped cream: Place a glass or metal mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. Mix heavy cream in the cold bowl using a hand mixer at high speed. Once soft peaks form, add sugar and vanilla, and mix until cream is thick.

Makes 6 biscuits and toppings

To Scone or Not to Scone (Cranberry Orange)

Sundays in the fall for me mean group trail running at Rock Creek Park, followed by a sweaty brunch, often hosted at one of the runners’ homes. Last week was hosted by Mr. Sean W. (Sean served up some fancy-pants dill crêpes with smoked salmon and capers . . .  to 12 people . . . immediately after a workout.  Talk about a classy and well-prepared chap!) I always want to contribute when someone else is hosting brunch, but I was limited by the fact that whatever I brought had to be ok sitting in a warm car for two hours. I settled on scones.

My experience to date has led me to believe that you are either a scone person or you’re not. I happen to love scones. I think a nice dry scone with cappuccino on a fall day is about as delicious as it gets (and a treat that seriously knocks my socks off is a plain scone with lemon curd and clotted cream, à la high tea in England). Some people, I have discovered, have a strong anti-scone sentiment and can’t comprehend why someone would ever choose a scone over a muffin. I’m not going to try to change those minds - it’s their loss. But the existence of scone polarity made me think long and hard about variations in scones and what kind of scone I wanted to make. Dry or moist; glazed, sugared or plain; eggs or no eggs? Ultimately, some of my decisions were made for me (e.g., a few scones got a little crispy in the oven due to my inattention and glaze became a must).

These scones were actually kind of difficult to make. Or, rather, I should say that my expectations were not on par with the actual process of making scones. I was envisioning a nice firm dough that I could roll out with ease and artfully chop into triangles, the way you would find them at a bakery or coffee shop (triangles, g-d-it, I wanted triangles). Uuuuuuuum, not the case. This particular dough is VERY sticky and a bit difficult to shape. (You'll notice that there are no photos of the rolling and cutting process because I was too busy swearing at random items on my countertop.) If you don't have triangle-shaped-scone-obsession like me, you can do drop scones, which are much easier (and described below). Whichever you choose, the taste of these babies is spot on.

To find the perfect scone recipe, I did a little reading and then turned to my friends Ina (Garten) and Tyler (Florence). Neither of their recipes was exactly what I wanted, so I fashioned an amalgamation of sorts. Might this inexact science have led to my shaping difficulties? Possibly, but the finished product was so tasty that I don't regret a thing. In retrospect, maybe I should have turned to Nigella Lawson or any British person. I think they have scone-making in their blood. That and a love for weird brown sauce.

Cranberry Orange Scones with Citrus Glaze

adapted from a combination of this Ina Garten recipe and this Tyler Florence recipe

Scones

1-1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1-1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tbs. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 egg

zest of 1 orange

juice of 1/2 orange 

1/2 cup dried cranberries

extra flour for rolling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift together flours, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in cold butter using a pastry blender or your hands (I find using my hands is most efficient). The result should be crumbly. Tyler suggested cutting the butter into the mix "using 2 forks." This suggestion is a joke. If you don't believe me, try the fork method. Then I will laugh at you.

In a separate bowl, mix cream, egg, orange juice and zest. Slowly incorporate wet and dry ingredients. Fold in cranberries.

For triangles: Generously flour a cutting board or whatever surface you like for rolling dough (I use silpats). Roll out dough to about 1/2 inch in thickness. I used lots of extra flour during this process. One helpful trick is to place a piece of wax paper on top of the dough while you roll - this leaves your roller clean for continued rolling. You should then be able to peel the wax paper off pretty easily.

For drop scones: Using a large spoon, scoop out large helpings of dough and plop down onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten down a bit so that they are loosely shaped like biscuits and uniform in size (this will help with even cooking).

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees or until the edges just start to brown. Place scones on a baking rack and let cool for 10-15 minutes before glazing.

Glaze

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tbs. fresh squeezed orange juice (from remaining half of orange)

Whisk powdered sugar and juice together. These measurements are a starting point. Depending on the humidity in your house, your taste in glaze consistency and the alignment of Saturn's moons, you will probably have to add more of the sugar or juice. You'll want a glaze thick enough so that it stays on the scones, but not so thick that you can't pour or spoon it onto the pastries. If you're having trouble, err on the thicker side - you can always spread it on with a knife, but you can't scoop runny glaze off the countertop (though I probably wouldn't question you if you did).

Once scones have cooled for 10-15 minutes (they should be a little warm, but not hot), pour or drizzle glaze onto scones. High-five yourself for a job well done.

Makes 18 scones