sparkle kitchen: homemade biscuits
This week's So Many Fairies story, “Whisp Tells a Story”, begins with “a happy family of four who lived in the carriage house of what was once a fine old home on Elm Street.” Mother, Father, and their sons, Edward and Paul, go for walks to get ice cream in the town square. They have weekend family outings for eggs and pancakes in the neighboring town.
But some of those normal family routines are interrupted when Paul’s father has some difficult news: Mother has to spend a while in the hospital. As Paul's father tries to tell the children what to expect, Paul looks to Whisp, the house fairy, who has a little fairy magic and a some important wisdom for Paul and his family.
Whisp's story is beautiful, but what really caught my attention in this story was the description of this family's lovely little everyday rituals. Because, while they always look a bit different, I think most families have a few of those. They may not seem like much. You may not even realize they're being established. But they're so comforting to fall back on when adversity strikes, and they're so helpful at carrying you through.
For our family, one of those rituals is that my husband loves to make homemade biscuits. Sometimes we eat them with jam or honey. Sometimes with a spicy sausage gravy. And sometimes—as pictured here—they become little breakfast sandwiches with scrambled egg and cheese and ham.
But most Sunday mornings, without fail, my kids wake up to the smell of a batch baking.
Like all parents, I hope that our family won't have to face real tragedy, but for the small sadnesses and misfortunes that life inevitably brings, this is one of those comforting rituals that gets us through.
Easy Homemade Drop Biscuits
Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold milk
8 tablespoons butter, melted (plus extra to grease the baking sheet and measuring cup)
Directions
Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Grease a medium baking sheet or cover it with parchment paper.
Then, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
In a separate, smaller bowl, slowly pour the warm butter into the cold milk, mixing as you do, until the butter forms little clots and clumps.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until the dough just comes together. Then, using a leveled-off, well-greased, 1/3 cup measure, portion out the biscuits onto the baking sheet, leaving about an inch of space between each one.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops start to turn golden. Enjoy with your favorite biscuit toppings.
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About the Author
Meryl Carver-Allmond
The Sparkle Kitchen Series is created by Meryl Carver-Allmond.
Meryl lives in a hundred-year-old house near the prairie with her sweet husband, two preschoolers, one puppy, one gecko, and about ten chickens. While she's been writing since she could pick up a pen, in recent years she's discovered the joy of photography, too. She feels lucky to be able to combine those skills, along with a third passion — showing people that cooking for themselves can be healthy and fun — in her Sparkle Kitchen posts.
