I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Baking

Buttermilk Chive Biscuits

Lila is a tough critic. But she approved of these biscuits.

Lila is one of my friend’s daughters. She is just about a year and a half old and in the year that I’ve known her I’ve gotten stink eye from this adorable little girl more times than I can count. She is the queen at mean muggin’.

But I think I finally broke through to her!!!!

All thanks to these biscuits!!!!!

Autumn and I made them the day before for our family. She is a fantastic little helper and baker. She helped me measure everything into the bowls. We count out the ingredients as we pour them into the bowls. And we she even learning how to propely scoop the floor into the measuring cup too!

That’s why Kid Chef Bakes: The Kids Cookbook for Aspiring Bakers by Lisa Huff is fantastic new cookbook. It has so many recipes that are kid friendly so they will love what you make with them in it. Kids of all ages will love everything from the cookies to the cupcakes to the bars. 

The book is full of clear instructions and lots of beautiful pictures. I love how informative it is for the kids learning the different processes and techniques used in baking. The book starts with different lessons in learning baking skills. It starts with basics likes measuring and moves on to folding ingredients in, and how to work with dough. All really important, interesting, and fun things for kids to try as they develop their kitchen skills.

(To note: Autumn said she would help me with the biscuits, then decided making biscuits at her sandbox/water-table on our lanai was more fun. We co-baked things. ha!)

 

Well, back to little miss Lila!

I was helping out my friend by picking Lila and her bigger sister, who is awesome friends with Autumn, up from daycare and giving them dinner while she hustled back from a meeting from work. I managed to get a smile from her while at daycare as I picked her up from her classroom, but the real moment when she let her guard with me when the kids were eating. She saw some leftover biscuits in a container on our counter and she eagerly pointed to them. While it wasn’t what I had planned on feeding her, I figured an extra biscuit wouldn’t hurt!

She gobbled that biscuit right up!!! I got the cutest smile when she was done and the rest of the night as smooth sailing.

I guess you just can’t resist a really great biscuit. I know I can’t.

This foolproof biscuit recipe is from Lisa Huff’s

To note: I didn’t have a 2″ round cookie or biscuit cutter and my cast iron pan was too small. But I made due with what I ha. And guess what… delicious biscuits.

The moral of the story is to adapt to use the size cutter that you have, or use the pan that you have, or even both! Square biscuits? Cool! 2 Smaller pans? Cool! Do the best that you can and just make it work otherwise.

Just don’t let anything come between you and these awesome biscuits. They are a going to be an instant family favorite!

Buttermilk Chive Biscuits

Makes 12 biscuits

Ingredients

  • Butter, for greasing the pan
  • 2 3⁄4 Cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 4 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon table salt
  • 6 Tablespoons cold, cubed unsalted butter
  • 1/2 Cup chopped fresh chives*
  • 1 to 1 1/2 Cups cold buttermilk
  • Flour, for the work surface
  • 3 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Process 

  1. Preheat the oven to 425F degrees . Set the oven rack to the lowest level. Grease a 10 1/2″ cast iron pan.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
  3. Cut in the butter with a fork or pastry cutter, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the chives
  4. Add 1 Cup of buttermilk; stir to loosely combine. Slowly add more buttermilk as necessary until the dough just comes together but is still moist. Do not overwork the dough or the biscuits will come out dense and dry.
  5. Place the dough on a well floured surface. Gently press the dough into a 1″ thick disk. Cut out the biscuits using the round cutter to form the biscuits. If you need to reform the dough into a 1″ thick disk to cut out more biscuits, do so gently so you don’t overwork the dough.
  6. Place the biscuits next to each other in the prepared pan. Bake on the bottom rack for 12 to 17 minutes or until golden brown.
  7. Brush with the melted butter. Cool slightly before serving.

____________________

Win a copy of Lisa Huff’s new book

Kid Chef Bakes: The Kids Cookbook for Aspiring Bakers

 

Leave a comment telling me what you like to make with your kids or what you liked to make with your parents while growing up.

Ends 11/9/17. Open to US residents only

 

 

Sticky Bun Monkey Bread

It’s Babymoon time!!!!

We are going away for a quick Babymoon this weekend. I am so excited!!

Last time, we took a trip to the Florida to visit The Keys for a long weekend but since we are here in Florida now, we are just staying local. I’d love to take another trip to The Keys but I didn’t feel like flying, err spending money on flights, really.

Price found a local resort and spa for us to visit. The idea of a prenatal massage and bumming it by the pool without a toddler asking you to go in and out and in and out again is pure bliss.

Generally, I feel good at 32 weeks but I am so blah and sore all over so I just need my slightly ever present charlie horses to be worked out. (Seriously, they are the worst things ever to wake up to in the middle of the night!!!) Thankfully, Price snagged the last one available for the day and I picked up the required doctor’s note so I am just counting down the minutes until the appointment.

The worst part is that I keep reading things included in our package and it just makes me want to stay forever. Well, more specifically, go back AFTER the baby is born for the unlimited drinks. Hello, unlimited mimosas at brunch!

If you aren’t going away this weekend, I insist you make this Sticky Bun Monkey Bread. It’s stupid good. And goes great with mimosas too. (Truth be told, everything goes with mimosas. It’s a fact!)

 

But seriously, this Sticky Bun Monkey Bread is a real crowd pleaser. It tastes just like a sticky bun with the sticky caramel syrup that you drizzle all over the cinnamon and sugar coated biscuit pieces.

I used refrigerated canned biscuits to make this process easier, but you can follow my recipe for Homemade Monkey Bread for the dough, and then add the nuts and caramel sauce to it.

The caramel is everything. Whatever you do, don’t just dip a finger in there to try it. Nor is it a good idea to immediately grab a piece of monkey bread right after you flip it out on to the serving platter. No, I def didn’t try that and burn the crap out of my fingers and then my mouth as the quickest thing I could think of was ‘ahh my fingers!’ so shoving it in my mouth was the next logical thing to do. Nope…

Let’s fast-forward to the weekend, shall we?

I’ll be ready for my prenatal massage and you will be ready to enjoy this Sticky Bun Monkey Bread. And a few mimosas in my honor.

Sticky Bun Monkey Bread

Makes 16 servings

Ingredients

  • 3/4 Cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 3 cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (10 biscuits per can)
  • 4 ounces of chopped pecans
  • 3/4 Cup butter
  • 1 Cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/3 Cup heavy cream
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Process

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Set aside.
  3. Spray a tube pan with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nuts in the bottom on the tub pan.
  4. Cut the biscuits in 4 equal pieces. Roll them in the cinnamon and sugar mixture
  5. Add half of the coated biscuit pieces into the tube pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 more nuts. Add the rest of the coated biscuit pieces and then the remaining chopped nuts.
  6. In a small saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar. Melt together over medium- high heat. Mix in the cream and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and mix in the vanilla extract.
  7. Evenly pour the caramel mixture over the coated biscuits.
  8. Bake for 35-45 minutes.
  9. Flip over onto a serving dish. Enjoy!

Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Monkey Bread

Damn, toddlers are difficult.

Under statement of the year, right?

Besides stating all the obvious things like them freaking the eff out over dumb stuff like what shoes they want to wear (I swear we can NEVER find the pair she wants to wear right that very minute!) or the Minnie/Dora/Disney Princess of the cup she wants, we have entered a whole new realm of ‘fun’.

We have now entered the fun bed time fights that involve me moving things because they scare her. Last night I had to move a stack of framed pictures and canvases sitting on her dresser to get hung up since they “look like an alligator” Say what?!?

Then a little while later I had to move a bag in the hallway since it, again, looked like animals trying to eat her. 

Can’t wait to see what tonight brings!

Also, I was asking her what I should put into the monkey bread. We settled on adding in chocolate chips (duh!) to the bananas and nuts. She was too into watching Shimmer and Shine on my phone (our cable isn’t hooked up yet… ugh!) to help me make it so understand what I was doing because…

as soon as it was ready and we offered her some “monkey Bread” she refused “EWWWWWW NO MONKEY’S BREAD.” Well then…

 

It’s like a

I almost called this Chunky Monkey Monkey Bread but I was afraid the double ‘monkey’ in the name would be confusing. Maybe?

And that’s all my silly stories for today!

Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Monkey Bread

Makes 10-12 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 packages of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
  • 1 Cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
  • 2 bananas, thinly sliced (about 1/4″ thick)
  • 2/3 Cup finely chopped nuts, such as walnuts or pecans
  • 1 Cup chocolate chips
  • 1 Cup butter, melted

Process

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a fluted tube pan with non stick cooking spray
  • Cut each roll into 4 pieces.
  • Place half the banana slices, chopped nuts, and chocolate chips in the bottom of the pan.
  • Roll each piece into the blend of sugars and cinnamon. Then put into the tube pan.
  • Once half the pieces are in the tub pan, add the remaining slices of banana, nuts, and chocolate chips.
  • Finish putting the coated biscuit pieces into the tube pan then evenly pour the butter over all of the pieces.
  • Bake for 43-48 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before inverting on a platter for serving.