Angel Biscuits

Light biscuits that can be mixed up ahead of time and baked on demand. A classic.

This is a great recipe to mix up early in the week and then bake as needed during the week. The aroma alone will make you hungry. For convenience I have included the recipe for Honey Butter Spread, which pairs beautifully with the biscuits.

Angel Biscuits

Light biscuits that can be made ahead and baked in the morning.
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Total Time30 minutes
Course: Breakfast, Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: make ahead, most requested, refrigerate
Servings: 45 biscuits
Author: For Goodness Taste

Ingredients

  • 1 package yeast or a scant teaspoon from a jar of yeast
  • 2 tablespoons warm water
  • 5 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 1 cup buttermilk or 1 tablespoon vinegar + 7 tablespoons milk

Instructions

  • Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
    1 package yeast, 2 tablespoons warm water
  • Sift flour with other dry ingredients.
    5 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt
  • Cut in shortening, using a pastry blender, fork or two knives, until it looks like crumbs.
    1 cup shortening
  • Add buttermilk and yeast mixture to flour mixture. Stir until a soft dough forms.
    1 cup buttermilk
  • Knead on a floured board for 2 minutes.*
  • Roll out to desired thickness and cut with biscuit cutter. **
  • Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees F.
  • Serve warm with Honey Butter Spread.

Notes

  • * At this point you can put the dough into a covered container or ziplock bag and store it in the refrigerator until it is needed; it will be good for at least 7 days.  Dough does not need to come back to room temperature before rolling it out.
  • **If desired, roll the dough out on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes before cutting the biscuits. This may allow the biscuits to bake taller.
  • If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can make a substitute by just adding  vinegar to milk.  Measure 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into a measuring pitcher, then add milk to make 1 cup.  Stir and let sit a few minutes.  

Honey Butter Spread

The shortest recipe in my collection!
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Dressing, Sauce or Spread
Cuisine: American
Keyword: dip, quick, spread
Servings: 4 people
Author: Kathleen Finnegan

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup butter softened
  • ¼ cup honey

Instructions

  • Beat butter and honey in a small bowl until light and fluffy. Serve with Fried Donut Puffs or Angel Biscuits.

Notes

Serves 4.
Store covered in the refrigerator.  Let soften at room temperature before serving for maximum spreadability.

Ways to use Angel Biscuits:

1) Pair fresh biscuits with Sausage Gravy for the classic Southern breakfast.
2) Serve with Sunday dinner.
3) Unexpected guests? Add Angel Biscuits to the menu to feed a few more mouths.
4) Bake, slice, then wrap in tinfoil and freeze. Pull out just what you need and make quick-to-go breakfast sandwiches with ham, sausage, bacon, eggs…
5) Pair freshly baked biscuits with Honey Butter Spread for a hospitality or condolence visit. Often the aroma of the biscuits is enough to entice the grieving to eat just a little bit, and the honey butter has them reaching for seconds.

Sharing, Savoring, Simplifying

I am a packrat.

There is no denying it. I have wooden painting projects that have moved with me from country to country for decades. I have leftover embroidery thread from completed projects, scraps from quilts long since completed, stickers from when my children were small (also decades ago)…toilet paper and paper towel and wrapping paper tubes that might be needed for a craft project…old keys to things that are probably long gone…and a gazillion recipes gathered over a lifetime of roaming as a military dependent, officer and wife.

The recipes I treasure. I have the newspaper recipes that my grandmother cut out and put in a box, same from my mother, a whole newspaper section of Bohemian/Slovakian recipes my father preserved, and the ones I myself cut out. Recipes shared during our military travels (military wives are the BEST cooks!) and recipes born out of living in areas where certain foods weren’t available. And then there are the recipes that I created in a JML moment when I didn’t have the exact recipe or exact ingredients I needed to make whatever I had a taste for.

Before my children went off to college I drafted them to help me type our most used recipes into a cookbook entitled ‘Things You Can Eat And Some Things You Can’t’ (yes, named by my brilliant children). There are a few typos (scratch that, a lot of typos) in the book, and it is printed, not digital, so…

Many requests later, I am going to attempt to make the cookbook digital. I will give attribution where I have it, and since apparently you cannot copyright a recipe, I ask only that you also provide attribution if you find the recipe worthy of using. Good food shared creates community and caring and nourishment of the body and soul.

Links to the recipe posts can be found in the sidebar of this website and on the Recipes From Life page. I hope you find at least one recipe that you really love — or perhaps lost — over the span of your own lifetime.

Kathleen

Good Energy Translations

Many years ago, my husband was stationed in Europe. When you are living far from your birth family, the other Americans around you become your second family. My European second family has stepped forward to help with the translations of Why(r)us the Virus and I can now provide the book in German (Why(r)us das Virus), French (Why(r)us le Virus) and Spanish (Why(r)us El Virus). The women who did the translations (Angie, Sophie and Andrea) were military spouses like myself, and we worked together in Europe to look after the American families stationed with us. Angie is a German national, Sophie is a French National, and Andrea is the daughter of a Mexican national, and all of them donated their time and energy to provide excellent translations so that the book can be of use world-wide. I am so grateful to them for their continuing contributions to increase the Good Energy in the world. Hopefully we can visit again soon, once the vaccine has made a difference in the pandemic’s spread. Just so lucky to have their friendship and support…

The 2020 election is amazing!

JML to be able to witness this election rather than read about it in a history book! To see citizens actively engaged in choosing their president, to have people care that much about the outcome – what a blessing! Many people may be disappointed – some because their candidate didn’t win, some because they find it hard to believe that their version of American values is not universally shared. But we cast our vote, we accept the result (however reluctantly) and we move on…and if the result was not as we wished, we know we have another chance in 4 years, and we get to work on that. It’s going to be okay, America. Be kind to each other.