Bacon Buttermilk Biscuits with Chocolate Gravy
Copyright Running Press
Ingredients
- Biscuits
- 2cups all-purpose flour (White Lily preferred), plus more for rolling out
- 4teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
- 4tablespoons bacon fat, cold
- 1cup buttermilk, chilled, plus up to 1/4 cup more if needed
- nonstick cooking spray
- Chocolate gravy
- 4tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder, sifted
- 2tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2cups whole milk
- 4tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- 1teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Make the biscuits:
- Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the fat to the bowl and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or a fork until pea-size crumbs form. Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir until just combined. The dough should be very sticky; if it isn’t, add up to 1/4 cup/60 ml more buttermilk until the dough is wet and sticky.
- Lay a large piece of waxed paper on a work surface and dust liberally with flour. Turn out the dough onto the floured surface and liberally sprinkle the surface of the dough with more flour. Pat down the dough with your hands, then gently fold the dough onto itself 4 to 6 times, dusting the dough with extra flour as your hands find sticky dough (in other words, don’t fiddle with the dough much; no true kneading is required). Dust with more flour if the dough sticks to your hands. Press the dough into a 1-inch/2.5 cm-thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch/5 cm round cutter. Place the biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet so that they just touch. Reroll the scraps and cut more biscuits (you should have 12 altogether).
- Bake the biscuits until they are golden on top, 15 to 20 minutes. Let them cool on the pan for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a serving plate. Serve them warm with butter and jam or with chocolate gravy.
Make the chocolate gravy:
- In a medium saucepan, whisk together the cocoa powder, flour, and sugar. Pour in the milk and whisk vigorously to combine. Place the pan over medium-high heat and cook until the mixture bubbles. Reduce the heat to medium and stir until the mixture has thickened to a gravy consistency. Remove the pan from the heat source and stir in the butter and vanilla.
- Let the gravy cool slightly before transferring it to a gravy boat or serving bowl. Pour or ladle the warm chocolate gravy over the buttermilk biscuits.
Reprinted with permission from Sea Salt Sweet © 2015 by Heather Baird, Running Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
