Yogurt Biscuits from Super Natural Every Day

When Mama makes biscuits, everyone's happy.

I made these yummy biscuits to go with this broccoli soup for dinner.  They're from Heidi Swanson's cookbook Super Natural Every Day. I like the book quite a bit, in fact, better than her last cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. She also has a nice blog called 101 Cookbooks. It's healthy, interesting stuff and despite the health bent, she seems very lovely and the site's not annoying at all. Anyway, the biscuits were fantastic and you should make some. They'd be a great breakfast with jam.

Makes 12 biscuits (She says 12, I say 16.)

1 ¼ cups spelt flour or whole wheat pastry flour (I used spelt)

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling

1 ½ teaspoons fine-grain sea-salt (I used iodized)

1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder (I was delighted to find that my baking powder was, in fact, aluminum-free!)

½ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1 ⅓ cup Greek-style plain yogurt (I used a combo of Greek and regular plain yogurt, about 50/50)

Preheat the oven to 450 with a rack in the middle of the oven. Place an ungreased baking sheet in the oven to preheat as well.

Combine the flours, salt, and baking powder in a food processor. Sprinkle the butter across the top of the dry ingredients and pulse about 20 times, or until the mixture resembles tiny pebbles. Add the yogurt and pulse a few times, or until the yogurt is just incorporated. Avoid overmixing, it’s fine if there are a few dry patches. Gather the dough into a ball and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead five times and press into an inch thick square. Cut in half and stack one on the other. Repeat two more times - flattening and stacking, then cutting. Add more all purpose flour to prevent sticking when needed. Press or roll out (I pressed) the dough into a 3/4 thick rectangle, but no thicker; if the dough is too tall, the biscuits will tilt and tip over while baking. Cut the dough into twelve equal biscuits.

Transfer the biscuits to the preheated baking sheet leaving 1/2 inch between each biscuit. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the bottoms are deeply golden and the biscuits are cooked through. Serve with butter and jam.

Puff Daddy Baked Apple Pancakes

Make this for breakfast for someone you love. Everyone will be happy.

Puff Daddy

• 1/2 (1/4 cup) stick unsalted butter
• 2 large firm, tart apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (granulated is fine in a pinch)
• a couple of decent shakes ground cinnamon
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (many recipes call for far less flour but I don't like it too eggy)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 425F. Melt butter over medium-high heat in an ovenproof 10-inch skillet. Add apples, granulated sugar, and cinnamon and saute, stirring occasionally, until the apples begin to brown and most of the juices have evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Turn off heat.

Combine eggs, milk, flour, and salt in a bowl and whisk until smooth. You can also whisk in some (2 T.) melted butter but that takes this to a new buttery level that is not actually necessary but, yes, delicious.

Spread the browned apples evenly across the bottom of the pan. Pour the batter over the apples. Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the pancake is golden and puffed, about 15-18 minutes. Be amazed.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the pancake rest in the pan for about 3 minutes. Squeeze a little lemon on it if you wish, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar, cut into wedges, and serve with warm maple syrup.

Serves 2-4.