I Love You Like Biscuits… and Jam!

If you’ve been following my Instagram or Facebook pages at all lately, you know that we recently went on a long weekend getaway to see and experience all that Ree Drummond – The Pioneer Woman has to offer up in a small town called Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Pawhuska is just over 5hrs from where we live so it makes it pretty accessible from the DFW metroplex. It was good to get away and to finally see everything I’d been hearing about so far! She’s built quite the delightful little empire up there…

One thing we kept seeing while we were roaming around The Merc, was the phrase “I love you like biscuits and gravy!” It’s adorable and definitely brings up happy thoughts of comfort food. The Mr thought about it so much, he just had to order the biscuits and gravy off The Deli menu. I ordered the Ham, Egg, & Green Chili breakfast sandwich, but that didn’t stop me from daydreaming about whipping up some biscuits to go with some of my homemade strawberry jam I made right before we left. I’ve always been more of a biscuits and jam kind of gal anyway.

The first day back, I was scheduled for an early shift at my part-time and I was so exhausted by the end of the day, that I did little more than water my garden, reheat leftovers for dinner, and spend the rest of the afternoon into early evening loafing on the couch reorganizing my travel board on Pinterest. I turned in early, but not without dreaming about finally popping the seal on one of those jars of strawberry jam. I determined to whip up some of my Sour Cream Drop Biscuits to go with my jam in the morning!

Sour Cream Drop Biscuits
Ingredients:
3c AP flour
1tbsp baking powder
1tbsp brown sugar (use 1/2tbsp white sugar instead if making savory biscuits)
1tsp salt (and 1tsp fresh cracked black pepper for savory biscuits)
3/4tsp cream of tartar
1/2c butter
1/4c Crisco
1c whole milk
1/2c sour cream
(Optional: For savory biscuits, add 1c shredded sharp Cheddar and 2tbsp rough chopped fresh chives)

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 450°F, position oven rack in the center of the oven, and spray one (or two – see note in step 4) large baking sheets with Pam.
2) In a lg mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar. Using a pastry blender, cut butter and Crisco until mixture resembles coarse, gravel-like crumbs.
3) Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add milk all at once. Stir the mixture until the milk has just soaked in and then add the sour cream all at once. Stir to just combine. (Note: add a little more milk if mixture is too tight or a couple tbsp of flour at a time if too loose to reach desired consistency.)
4) Use a 1/4c measuring cup to scoop dough onto prepared baking sheet spacing about 1/2in apart. (This recipe should make about 18 biscuits so you may need two baking sheets depending on the size of your baking sheet.) Feel free to brush with melted butter before/after baking for extra richness and color!
5) Bake for 12-15min until tops are golden. Transfer immediately to a wire rack to cool.

These biscuits are just the right balance of crumble and cloud-like softness. I prefer to use salted butter in my baking, but feel free to either use unsalted or omit the extra salt if you prefer less salty with your sweet. Speaking of butter, if you don’t have any Crisco on hand, you can swap it out with additional butter. You could use oil as well, but you’ll need to adjust the liquid in the rest of the recipe and I don’t recommend swapping out the entire amount as it will make the batter too loose and the finished biscuits too oily.

The sour cream adds a pleasant rich tartness to the dough, not unlike buttermilk. If you don’t like sour cream, you can make these with 1-1/4c milk instead of the sour cream-milk combination. If you’re short on cream of tartar, you can use 1-1/2tsp lemon juice or vinegar instead. I have not tested these biscuits using gluten free flour or alternative milk. I have not ever had success with making gluten free biscuits from scratch (aside from gluten free Bisquick – if you want to call that “scratch”), and I’m not entirely sure how alternative milks will alter the flavor, but you’re welcome to make the attempt and come back to let me know!