easy bread recipe Archives - My Beautiful Mess

Looking for things to do with your sourdough discard? Here is a recipe for sourdough cheddar bay biscuits that will be the perfect addition your weeknight dinner.

Can we be honest? The only reason I really love to go to Red Lobster is for those amazing cheddar bay biscuits. I mean the fish isn’t anything to write home about, but I can make a meal out of those biscuits. So today, I’m sharing a recipe for those lovely cheddar bay biscuits but with a little twist.

Just recently I decided to start a sourdough starter. I had started one last year, but with the multiple moves and taking care of my dad in hospice, I neglected it. So here I am starting it over again. If you have thought about starting a sourdough starter, I highly recommend Ballerina Farms. They take out a lot of the guesswork of a starter. They sell dry starters that you can reconstitute and then feed with detailed instructions. It’s great. They even sell the weck jars if you need them, though you can also purchase them on Amazon.

Sourdough Discard

One question I get asked a lot from new sourdough bakers is, “why you have to discard your some of your sourdough starer?” Well the answer is pretty simple. Your sourdough needs to be fed a certain amount of flour based on how many grams of starter you have. The more you starter you have the more flour you have to feed it. So it can require more and more flour very quickly. To remedy that, we discard some of the starter.

Now you can throw your starter away, although most people don’t do that. We can just add the starter to something we are baking and their tons of things you add it to – pancakes, waffles, cookies, and of course bread. I don’t recommend ever throwing it down a sink. It will become like concrete in your pipes. The best thing to do is just add it to something you are making. What if you don’t have anything to bake? No problem. You can keep a jar of sourdough discard in your fridge. Keeping it in your fridge slows down the bacterial growth and you won’t have to feed it for a while. Try to use the discard as quickly as possible though.

So this week, I decided to add it to a copycat cheddar bay biscuit recipe I had. The turned out amazing. They were fluffy and light and well…cheesy of course. I shared it on my Instagram and people asked for the recipe. So I agreed I’d include it here.

Are They Different?

Sourdough definitely yields a different texture when added to breads. Sourdough crusts tend to be tougher on the outside. Sourdough breads will typically have a tougher crust and a stronger center. Now you may ask why honey is included in this recipe. It offsets any sourness and it so small that you won’t even taste in the biscuits.

Ingredients and Tools

Sourdough cheddar bay biscuits are drop biscuits. This means that you don’t need a biscuit cutter or anything like that. However, I do recommend using am ice cream scooper for your dough. I have found using an ice cream scooper will help keep your biscuits, all the same size which ensures, even baking time and keep them looking uniform. Other than that you just need a cookie sheet and a large mixing bowl.

Some people make them like scones. If you prefer the triangle method, form your dough into a pie shape, then using a dough scraper or pizza cutter cut the pie into ⅛ slices. I still really prefer the round shape because they cook more evenly in my opinion.

Sourdough Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Sourdough Cheddar Bay Biscuit

Print Recipe

Course Breads

Servings 8

Equipment

baking sheet
ice cream scoop or dough scraper
pastry brush
mixing bowl, medium

Ingredients

1 Cup Sourdough starter 50% hydration starter
1 Cup all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
1 ¼ Cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

For the butter topping

4 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried parsley

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°
In a medium sized mixing bowl, add 1 cup of sourdough starter and 1 cup of all purpose flour along with the baking powder and salt
Add the honey and fold in the cheddar cheese until its fully combined
Using an ice cream scoop place scoops on a greased baking sheet
Bake in 400° for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown

For the topping

Melt the butter. Add butter, powdered garlic and dried parsley. Using a pastry brush, brush the melted butter on the warm tops of the biscuits and serve warm.

Keyword bread, drop biscuits, easy bread recipe, garlic bread

Storage

I would recommend storing the bread in an air tight container or at least a covered cake dish or something similar. They store for about three days so eat them quickly. You can rewarm them in the oven if needed. I find it is best to sprinkle the tops lightly with a little water before you put them in the oven. Be careful not to over bake.

If you are interesting in yeast baking, be sure to try my simple white bread recipe. Baking bread is not as hard as you might think. It takes a little practice but most people catch on very quickly. With all the rising inflation, baking things from scratch is definitely a way to save some money. Thanks for stopping by. Let me know how they turned out in the comments.

They are little rounds of heaven. You’ll be surprised to know how easy it is to whip up a batch of simple homemade flour tortillas tonight for dinner. Today, I’m sharing my authentic recipe straight from our Tex-Mex kitchen.

Homemade flour tortillas are one of the best things on the planet. Growing up in my Hispanic family, I loved it when my mom had a steaming hot, fluffy stack of homemade tortillas waiting for us. I loved smearing butter all over freshly warmed tortillas. They were so good.

Lately, I’ve been making them often. First, they are great for lunches for the kids. I grill them up with cheese and make quesadillas for their lunch. Sometimes I have some leftover meat, but not quite enough for a meal, that’s when I shred it up for tacos or quesadillas. I’m a little embarrassed to say that it doesn’t matter how many tortillas I make, we always seem to eat them all!

So today I’m going to show you how easy it is to make simple homemade flour tortillas right in your kitchen. They are far superior to store-bought ones and once you get familiar with making them, you won’t want the rubbery, chewy mass-produced ones.

Ingredients

Tortillas are a wonderfully easy bread because they require few ingredients. In fact, you may already have what you need. First, all you need is all-purpose flour. There is no need to use any kind of special flour. As I mentioned before, tortillas are unleavened bread, so you don’t need leavening agents like baking powder or yeast. However, you can add baking powder to make them fluffier if you desire. Really, all you need is flour, lard, water and a pinch of salt.

Traditionally tortillas are made with lard. I think lard makes the best version of tortillas. The tortillas seem to have a fluffier, smoother texture with lard. I highly recommend using lard above any other fat. However, if you don’t have lard on hand you can substitute other fats. You can also make them with butter, shortening and even vegetable oil in a pinch.

You can buy lard at the store in the butter section. It costs around the same price as butter and it stores in your fridge for months. You can even make lard at home (see video below). That’s right, don’t throw those drippings away!

Tools

Many people are discouraged from making tortillas for one simple reason – rolling out circles, I know I underestimated how hard it is to roll out a perfect circle. Like really hard! Personally, I don’t mind if mine aren’t perfect, but others do. I will say that it takes lots of practice to roll them out, so don’t get discouraged if they aren’t perfect. I guarantee you regardless of their shape, they will still taste amazing! So you can use two different methods to make them. You can roll them out using a rolling pin or you can use a tortilla press.

Tortilla presses are great because you put your ball of dough in, clamp down and it presses out your tortilla to the perfect thickness and size. It definitely makes them more uniform looking. Using a tortilla press also seriously cuts down on time. It takes far less time to press them as it does to roll them out. So if you are making them for a weeknight dinner, this really speeds it up. I highly recommend using a cast-iron one . I love mine.

Frankly, you don’t need any special tools to make tortillas, but I’ve used my stand mixer to speed things up as well as using a pastry blender if I am doing it by hand.

Also, if you make tortillas often, you may want to invest in a tortilla warmer. They really do keep them warm for a long while. They are fairly cheap too. If you don’t have a tortilla warmer, place a clean dishcloth inside a covered dish and slip them into the dishcloth to keep them warm.

Cooking the Tortillas

To make tortillas you’ll combine your ingredients – flour, salt, hot water and your lard. If you want them to be fluffier you can also add 1 teaspoon of baking powder. If you are substituting a different fat for lard such as vegetable oil or shortening you will use the same measurements as lard which is ⅓ cup. Mix the dough with a dough hook attachment on your stand mixer or you can use a pastry cutter to cut in the lard.

You can divide your dough into sixteen portions. That will make about 16 small 6″ tortillas or you divide into twelve pieces and it will yield about a dozen 8″ tortillas. I typically make 8″ ones.

Tortillas need to be cooked one at a time unless you have a long griddle, in which case you can do two at a time. Place the tortillas down on a griddle with medium heat. Cook for about 2 mins on each side. You will likely see the tortilla puff as it cooks. That is totally normal. Flip it over. The cooked side should have some light brown spots That’s how you know it is cooked! Then repeat on the other side.

How to Store Them

So you can choose to warm your tortillas all at once or you can choose to warm them up over a period of a couple of days. Store the ready-made tortillas in your fridge in a zip lock bag. You can separate them with wax paper so they don’t stick together. I recommend taking them out of the fridge about ten to fifteen minutes before you are ready to warm them up so they cook quickly and evenly on your griddle. I think they cook better that way than when they are a stone-cold temperature.