Ramp and Cheddar Biscuits (Redux)

Ramp and cheddar biscuits are a great savory vacation on the classic biscuit – you’ll wish you had your own secret ramp patch!

Hello, friends. If you’ve been following this blog from the very beginning (and if not, WHY) you might remember a recipe for ramp and fontina biscuits from a couple of years ago. Here it is. We were not tricking you, it was indeed a fine recipe and made good-tasting biscuits. However, the consistency of the final product was more like that of a scone, and did not have the rise nor the flakiness of a really excellent biscuit. I thought we could improve on that with a new technique.

This new recipe – again with ramps, but substituting cheddar for the original fontina – uses a different method to incorporate the butter into the other ingredients. In fact, we used the ramp compound butter that we made last week as the sole butter component. It definitely rose more than the 2013 versions, but you might get even better results by combining half of a compound butter (which has a little extra moisture from the ramps) with normal unsalted butter. If you don’t already have compound butter available, you can sauté your green ingredient as per the other recipe and mix in accordingly.

Ramps have a delicious oniony-garlicky flavor that pairs incredibly well with the sharpness of good, strong cheddar. If you want to do a happy dance, use the ramp and cheddar biscuits to make a breakfast sandwich with scrambled or fried eggs and crispy bacon.

• Make sure your butter, cream and buttermilk are all very cold. The colder the dough, the flakier the biscuit.
• You could substitute your favorite compound butter for the ramp butter. Chive, lemon and garlic would be fantastic.
• Check out our Ramp Butter post for other ideas on what to do with compound butters.

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Ramp and Cheddar Biscuits (Redux)

Prep Time1 hour hr

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Servings: 12 biscuits

Author: Matt Clifton

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup cream
• 8 oz cold butter or ramp butter
• 2 eggs divided (one for egg wash)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup grated sharp cheddar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 450F.
• Cut the butter into pea-sized pieces (approx. 1/4 tablespoon each) and return it to the fridge to chill
• Combine buttermilk, cream and one of the eggs
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cheese
• Add the cold butter into the flour mix, working it with your fingers until fully combined
• Add the buttermilk mixture into the flour and mix with a fork until just combined. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
• Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and form into a rectangle, about half an inch thick.
• Fold it into thirds, use a rolling pin to flatten it gently to a half-inch thickness, and repeat the fold into thirds. Flatten one more time.
• Chill the rolled dough in the fridge for another 15 minutes if it is soft.
• Use a cookie cutter to cut out the rounds - you should be able to get 12 biscuits from the dough.
• Set the rounds on a silicon mat on a baking tray, brush with a little beaten egg, and bake for 15-20 minutes until fully risen and/or golden brown.
• Rest on a cooling rack for 5 minutes

Notes

The preparation time includes time to chill the dough. You can skip this, but a colder butter is the secret to well-risen biscuits.

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