Thanksgiving Part II: Overly-Optimistic Apple Pie and Biscuit Success

For our second Thanksgiving celebration here in Jakarta, I decided (in a very overly optimistic moment) that my contribution would be to make homemade apple pies, despite having virtually no kitchen equipment to speak of.  I also promised biscuits, which were a little bit more realistic.  The whole process was, shall we say, a learning experience, for several reasons.

The pies: 

I read about this method for making a fool-proof apple pie in the Washington Post last week, and, entranced by the article, I decided to make it without having read the recipe itself.  Oops.  Always read the recipe first.  This might be the most complicated recipe I've ever made: make the crust, let the crust sit, roll out the crust, freeze the crust, bake the crust... saute the apples, refrigerate the apples, put the apples in the crust, top the apples with the other crust, bake the whole pie. Soooo many steps.  After getting this complicated process started, I was having a lot of trouble getting the pie crust dough to stay together; it was so crumbly that it was unmanageable.  Sigh.  Ultimately the pies came together but the crust was ridiculously thick.  Not the best.  Some of it I blame on the recipe, some I blame on the kitchen conditions, such as:

1. The oven: temperature not so accurate, only heats from the bottom so the top doesn't get brown (and then when you turn on the broiler on the top, the top gets too brown).  Plus the timer on the oven is super fast (compared to Tim's iPhone, it was 3-4 minutes faster over the span of 10 minutes). 

 2. Counter space: I rolled out the pie crust on the dining room table.  Voila:

3. Cooking equipment: like I said, not ideal.  I bought disposable pie plates, but they could barely handle the weight of the pie, and the sides were a bit steep as well.

The biscuits:

Did you know that the KFCs in Jakarta don't have biscuits (or mashed potatoes, for that matter)?  Instead, they serve rice.  Ben and Erin were telling us how they miss biscuits, so I decided to make them for Thanksgiving.  The biscuits went much better than the pies.  

I had planned on using a recipe I'd used in the past, but when I went to the grocery store, the only flour they had was (inexplicably) specialty flour like whole wheat, bread flour and self-rising flour.  I bought the self-rising flour in the hopes that I could find a biscuit recipe that called for it... success!  I made the buttermilk version of this recipe from Gold Medal (no buttermilk to be found, but I used the old milk plus lemon juice trick).  Worked like a charm.  Also, I used butter rather than shortening.  I like buttery biscuits.

Buttermilk Biscuits!

I went to the beach (Sandbridge Beach, a low-key part of Virginia Beach) Labor Day weekend for some beaching, relaxing, drinking, eating and makin' memories (yes, our house was aptly named "Makin' Memories") with about 13 other people. Generally unscathed by Earl, we cooked massive meals, got sunburnt, drank more beer than you can imagine, and gave all of your favorite board and party games a bad name.

Some of my fellow beachers had requested biscuits for breakfast. I knew that biscuits from a can would be super easy, but I also knew they just wouldn't taste very good compared to flaky, light homemade biscuits, so I decided to make the biscuits myself. Not knowing what sort of equipment and ingredients Makin' Memories would have, I brought the dry ingredients for these awesome biscuits with me and mixed up the dough on-site. I chose this recipe, a) because it was high up on the Google hit list for buttermilk biscuits and b) because it used cake flour, which I had in abundance after making angel food cake a couple months ago. This recipe is awesome- I think the cake flour gives it an airy lightness. The recipe is so delicious that I couldn't snap a photo in time. But Nicole of Pinch My Salt fame has plenty, so take a look at hers and try not to drool.

Note: This recipe doesn't make a ton of biscuits. For 14 people, I made 3 batches of biscuits, which was a good amount.

Strawberry Shortcake

Got some strawberries from the CSA that needed to be used ASAP. Thought strawberry shortcake would be a good Memorial Day dessert to welcome summer...

I had buttermilk in the fridge left over from the last time I made biscuits, so I thought I'd make a sweet buttermilk biscuit as the shortcake. The only change I made from this Epicurious recipe was to sprinkle some raw sugar on top of each biscuit after I brushed them with milk. I liked these biscuits for strawberry shortcake since they were tender and tasty, but for general munching, I prefer the other biscuits I've made, which have the buttery layers I look for in a biscuit.

Cheddar and Chive Buttermilk Biscuits

Mmmmm... now that I've discovered that I can successfully make homemade flaky, buttery, delicious biscuits, I want to make them all the time. But I restraint myself and try to limit it to once a month, max.I hosted a brunch for my new "TV Club" (like a book club, but more fun and less pretentious) this morning and made these cheddar and chive buttermilk biscuits, which were a big hit. Super easy and really fabulous.

Cheddar and Black Pepper Biscuits

Just about everything Joy the Baker makes causes me to drool... but this cheddar/black pepper biscuit recipe particularly caught my eye because she used the biscuits as the basis of an egg sandwich. I love egg sandwiches. I think my dying meal would be a bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich on a biscuit.

Anywho: biscuits.

I used to be intimidated by biscuits, but turns out they're really easy to make. I had great luck with Smitten Kitchen's cheddar and jalapeno scones, which were very biscuit-like (what is the difference between scones and biscuits?). These were equally awesome... peppery and cheesy with a ton of flaky layers. Yum.

Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuit/Scones

I saw these biscuity scones on Smitten Kitchen and immediately started drooling. I also thought they would go well with the sweet potato and black bean soup I was making.

Mmm: these were great. The outside was crispy and scone-y, while the inside was flaky and layered like a biscuit. Awesome. Best biscuits I've ever made, although I would not call myself a biscuit expert.

The only thing I did differently is to use 1/4 C greek yogurt and 1/4 1% milk in place of the heavy cream since we didn't have any, and I didn't want to brave the rain to go to Giant to get some. The substitution seemed to work out nicely!

Also, these made some awesome ham, egg and cheese sandwiches the next morning: