Lightened Up Biscuits

I love this antique biscuit cutter that belonged to my grandmother.

Yum!

Last weekend my man Dan was in Las Vegas, sin city, to photograph the goings on at a convention for one of his clients.  His take on L.V. is, “it’s like Disneyland on crack”.  I don’t think he saw the light of day until he’d been there for three days and was forced to venture out for a piece of equipment he needed to pick up.  It was also the weekend before Halloween so I can only imagine the sights he may have been privy to.  He’s home safe and sound and spending enormous amounts of time in front of his computer processing and editing.

I took full advantage of having the house to myself, most of the time.  Miss T floated in and out. Between school, work and her social life, my time with her was mostly in the late evenings, having those late night kind of girl chats.  It’s a wonderful thing!

I spent umpteen hours in the kitchen trying all sorts of yummy recipes to share with you. I am anticipating limited time for cooking, photographing and blogging in the coming weeks, so I decided to get a jump on it and have some ideas in reserve.

When I found this recipe for Lightened Buttermilk Biscuits in the September issue of Southern Living magazine I knew I had to try it.  I like the special “lightened up” section that Southern Living includes in their monthly issues.  I don’t always go for the lighter version but on this occasion it sounded ideal.  I had all the ingredients on hand and biscuits sounded fit for a Saturday morning alongside a hot cup of coffee.  Sumatra from Starbucks, to be exact.  That stuff will give you a jolt and wake you right up.  I think I’d had 2 cups and was ready to get busy in the kitchen.

As I measured ingredients and patted out dough my mouth was watering just imagining the biscuits hot out of the oven with some of Linda Lee’s honey drizzled on them.  These little guys have only 79 calories per biscuit.  With a calorie count that low I figured I could eat two.  They are tender with just a little tang from the buttermilk, the perfect complement to any sweet you might slather on them.  I tried mine with strawberry jam and honey.  I’ll admit, I also devoured one with butter, real butter, and it was hard to beat.

Enjoy!

Butter

Strawberry Jam

Linda Lee's Honey

Lightened Buttermilk Biscuits 

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1 1/4 cups non-fat buttermilk
Parchment paper

Preheat oven to 400*.  Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles a coarse meal.  Chill 10 minutes. (have another cup ‘o joe)

Add buttermilk to flour mixture; stirring just until moistened.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 3 or 4 times.

With floured hands, pat dough into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle, dust the top with flour.  FOld dough over itself in 3 sections, starting with the short end, (as if folding a letter-size piece of paper).  Repeat once, beginning with patting dough into a rectangle.

Pat dough to 3/4 inch thickness.  Cut dough with a 2 inch round cutter and place 1 inch apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake at 400* for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from baking sheet to wire racks; cool 2 minutes.  Serve warm.