A Fortuitous Mistake

The other day, My Beloved and I were vegging in front of the television, catching an episode of "Follow That Food." Gordon Elliott was watching Paula Deen make beer biscuits, so we watched, too. Onscreen, Paula used just three ingredients, Bisquick, beer and sugar; the host remarked on how light they were.

Well, we were having leftover beef stew from the freezer for dinner and what's better with beef stew than biscuits? I was inspired to hop up, rush out to the kitchen, and make the same recipe. The biscuits in my past have been anything but light, so I was hopeful that these beer biscuits would be da bomb.

I estimated the amounts, since Ms. Deen didn't give exact measurements on the show. I scooped out two cups of Bisquick, added a scant 1/4 cup of sugar, stirred those two together thoroughly, then stirred in enough beer to make the dough look approximately as hers did. The stirring was very brief, just enough to incorporate all the dry ingredients into the beer. I buttered the muffin cups and dropped the dough into the cups to fill them about 3/4 full.

I used a hot oven, 400 degrees F, and baked them until they were golden brown, about 15 minutes or so. They emerged from the oven as light as dandelion down with a crisp top and a soft crumb inside. Utterly perfect spread with honey butter and served with our beef stew. We shared the rest of the bottle of beer with dinner.

While I was making them, My Beloved went online to Ms. Deen's site and, lo and behold, there was the real recipe! It turns out, she uses melted butter, too, which they didn't show on TV, so I didn't add and we didn't miss. I probably won't bother since the biscuits are obviously lower in fat without it and, frankly, when you smear each bite with honey butter, you are getting all the fat you could possibly want.

You really don't need a recipe for these biscuits, nor for the honey butter. To make that, all you do is whisk into softened, room temperature butter as much honey as your taste buds tell you is perfect - it takes just a few seconds.

I should learn not to fly by the seat of my pants when attempting recipes for the first time but, honestly, the success experience I had probably won't teach me a thing. It was a fortuitous mistake that encourages experimentation, and one I plan to repeat often.