Red Lobster who?

Confession: I’ve never had Red Lobster’s biscuits. No, seriously. Practically everyone I know adores them, though, and as my good friend Fis will tell you, I’ve been trying to figure out biscuits for quite a while. Finally, after hours of reading recipes on the Internet and a few phone calls to my grandmother, I tried the recipe off of the bag of White Lily flour in our pantry.

Not the same as generic bleached self-rising flour.

After years of trying, SUCCESS! Not on the first try, of course, but once I figured out what the dough was actually supposed to look like, they started coming out of the oven PERFECT. Inspired by the footnote after the recipe and Ryan’s love for Red Lobster biscuits, I added cheddar cheese and garlic, and the results were legen…

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wait for it...

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dary.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups White Lily Unbleached Self-Rising Flour
• 1/4 cup Crisco, cold
• 1/2 cup Cheddar cheese, plus extra for sprinkling on top
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup buttermilk

For the Garlic Butter Topping:

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

First, preheat the oven to five hundred degrees. In a large bowl, use a pastry cutter to cut the Crisco into the flour until it looks crumbly.

Next, stir in the 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. Don’t use your hands, you don’t want the Crisco to get warm.

Next, use a fork to stir in the milk a little at a time. When the dough starts to stick to itself, stop adding milk and knead it a few times with your hands. Watch this step carefully, too much milk will ruin the biscuits, but you don’t want them dry.

This is the consistency you want.

Next, press the dough out onto a floured surface until it is about 3/4 of an inch think. I just laid out wax paper, it makes for easy cleanup. To keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, dust them with flour too.

Press straight down into the dough with a biscuit cutter. Don’t twist, this “seals” the edges and stops the biscuits from rising.

Place the biscuits with their sides nearly touching on a greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle a little extra cheese on top of each one. Bake them for about 6 minutes, or until they look like this:

While the biscuits are in the oven, mix in a small bowl your melted butter and garlic powder. When the biscuits have been in the over for a few minutes, pull them out and brush them with the garlic butter mixture.

Bake them for another minute or two after brushing, to let the butter and garlic brown. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes before removing them from the tray.

This recipe would be easy to alter, too. I’d like to try using mozzarella in the filling and Parmesan on top, and adding Italian seasoning in the butter. Havarti and dill might eventually happen too.

Let me know what you guys think! I’d love to hear your cheese and herb butter ideas.