Are you invited to a potluck this holiday season?  If so, these biscuits are so easy and are great to bring to a potluck!  I made them for dinner today to go with my hungarian goulash (see previous post).  Now that I’ve made the goulash many times, I don’t need to follow a recipe as thoroughly, therefore I can focus on baking or making delicious treats to complement the goulash.  Cooking involves some planning and organization, especially for someone like myself who still needs recipes (I’m not the kind of person to throw a bunch of things in a pot and come up with a gourmet dish).  I need measurements, and steps.  I clean the entire kitchen, sanitize my work surfaces, prep my ingredients, tie on my apron, hair in a pony tail, wash hands, and off I go.

I had fresh chives in my fridge, and I only needed to pick up some cream cheese, everything else was in my fridge or cupboard.  The recipe comes from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, which was a gift from my sister (thanks, B!)  See my progress below!

Fresh, beautiful chives – look at that beautiful green.

This part is important, folding the dough in thirds and rolling it out and repeating a few times.  Then it goes in the fridge for half an hour, which allowed me to clean up the kitchen and get started on the goulash – organization and preparation makes the world go round.

The finished product, they are as good as they look, flaky and SO delicious!

Present them on your prettiest serving dish, with parsley and dried apricots for colour, or pack them up and take them to your potluck, they travel well and won’t dry out.

Here’s the recipe:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, and some for dusting

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 chives

1 stick unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

4 ounces cream cheese, cold

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1.  whisk together all dry ingredients, and chives.

2.  Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter and cream cheese until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining.

3.  Pour in the buttermilk, using a fork, mix until incorporated and the dough comes together.  It will be slightly sticky, do not over mix.

4.  Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface, and gently knead out about four times.  With a lightly floured rolling pin, gently roll out the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick.  Then fold the rectangle into thirds (like a business letter).  Roll out the dough and fold into thirds again.  Do this one more time, then wrap with plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5.  Return the dough to the floured work surface.  Roll out and repeat the folding process two more times.  Roll out into a rectangle for the last time, divide the dough into 12 equal squares, out on a baking sheet with parchment paper (about 1 1/2 inches apart from each other).

6.  Put in the refrigerator for another hour.

7.  Pull out of refirigator and bake in a 425° preheated oven, for 15 to 18b minutes.

8.  Cool, and serve on your favourite serving dish with a pretty garnish.