24 Bakes: Sweet Cream Biscuits and Southern Style Biscuits

Bake #5+ was with a friend

When I started this baking journey*, I was doing what I do best, asking my internet friends for ideas of what to make. When posting, I specifically asked for a biscuit recipe, and I was sent quite a few, but the one I received the most was written by my IRL friend, food editor

Meghan Splawn

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One very important DM I received was from Meghan herself, offering to teach me in person. I, of course, jumped at the chance. Not only would I finally learn how to make biscuits, but I’d also get to hang with my friend. Because of our busy lives, we joke that we get one hangout a year (generally around Christmastime).

Why [these] recipe[s]

Meghan asked me if I was going to make this two posts, or count it as two, because technically it was two different recipes, but I’m not. So, while it’s *technically* two recipes, you get to enjoy (or hate) one post and one post only.

So, let’s dig in. I fully expected to only make Southern-style biscuits, but I had this thought in the back of my head that Meghan would bring sprinkles, and it’s like I have ESPN or something because she did.

The Recipe[s]

These recipes were chosen (aka written) by Meghan herself, so I didn’t have to do any digging or print anything out or honestly do any prep work. Meghan even brought all the ingredients, be still my heart.

Sweet cream biscuits are the best invention, and simpler than Southern-style biscuits. I very much enjoy a Bo-Berry biscuit (when they actually have them in stock, but that’s an entire other rant), so this is the perfect answer to that! The sweet cream (read: sprinkle!) biscuit recipe can be found on Meghan’s Didn’t I Just Feed You podcast website here.

Meghan’s Southern-style biscuit recipe can be found here. She made some slight changes to it, but for all intents and purposes, it’s the same.

How it went

Let’s be real: it went great because Meghan was there. Even if they had tasted or turned out terribly, it would have been fine, because she was there. If I had done this on my own, my husband would have nodded up and down with crumbs hanging out of his mouth saying I did a great job, and we both would have known I did not, so I’m very glad I had someone to help me.

We made the sweet cream biscuits first, because they were the quickest and we needed the butter to get a little colder for the Southern-style. We mixed them up and popped them in! I don’t even think I have any photos of us making them, they were that quick. These biscuits use heavy cream instead of butter and buttermilk.

The Southern-style biscuits required more… finesse. The big secret, that everyone knows if you’ve ever made biscuits, is that the butter and buttermilk need to be very, very cold. After you box-grate the butter, you need to work quickly to incorporate it with your hands, so you don’t completely melt it.

Then you fold, fold, fold but don’t overfold. You fold around 8 times and make sure it springs back (I included a video of Meghan folding above!). Then cut the biscuits using a cutter. Meghan brought these too, but you can get different sizes here. They also work as cookie cutters! Once they’re all cut out, line them up to touch as they bake (so they’ll rise!). Then press your thumb gently on top of each one to make that cute lil dimple and pop them in the oven.

Since this first attempt, I attempted to make sweet cream (or sprinkle!) biscuits again, but I made one fatal mistake: I subbed the heavy cream for coconut milk. I have some problems with lactose, and I didn’t have what I needed on hand, so I thought I could do it, no problem. It made the consistency off, and because I’m a novice baker, I didn’t correct it…correctly. The tasted ended up being fine, but they turned out more like doughy scones. I think I could do it again and not overcorrect so much!

What I Learned

• Biscuits maybe aren’t that hard? Granted, I did have someone standing with me telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. Also, we made these in February and I’ve only attempted the sprinkle biscuits again. But then again, it also took me five months to even write this because of a very busy season at the J-O-B, so we’ll blame it on that.

• I need a better grater. Grating butter is hard when you have a shitty grater. Upgrade if you’re going to make this recipe. We did half grated butter and half cut.

• Flour doesn’t have to be expensive. You can use pretty much any flour, but all-purpose works great.

• Make ‘em touch! Making the biscuits touch will make them rise more.

• Add butter on top. After pulling the Southern-style biscuits out, we used a stick of butter to lightly add to the top, which makes them *pop* for photos (and duh, butter is delicious).

• If you have a kiddo, have them “help”. There was no actual help provided but he enjoyed himself immensely.

*I started writing this post in February, when we actually made the biscuits, and since then have read numerous articles about how Gen-Z or Millennials or whoever the Internet is mad at now calls everything a journey. Guess what? I’m a Millennial, but this really is a mother-f’ing journey. BAKING IS HARD AND I WILL CALL IT THAT IF I WANT TO.