Bacon, Pepper Jack, and Green Onion Biscuits

My dad's name is Kim-Fai Chan.

My dad - KFC

Just imagine his surprise when he and my mom came over from Hong Kong and there was a company in the good ol' US of A that bore his initials AND sold chicken that was finger lickin' good.  Naturally, my dad felt connected to Kentucky Fried Chicken. I remember one 4th of July, he stood up and inched toward the middle of the road, gesturing to us to take his picture with the KFC float as it went by on the parade route.

The glasses almost match too!

As a kid, we would have dinner at the KFC on special occasions. My favorite thing at the KFC then and now are the biscuits.  Fluffy and buttery and absolutely the best with butter and honey. Oh yeah!

However, all my attempts as a teenager to make fluffy, light, buttery biscuits resulted in dry lumps of lead dough. Not awesome.

After all these years, I've gotten braver and tried a few different biscuit recipe, and I'm happy to announce that I have gotten better.

These biscuits are reminiscent of KFC biscuits.  Okay, they're better.

First of all, they're homemade. Second of all, there's cheese in them!  Third of all, they actually taste better the second day.  It's like all the flavors--the bacon, the green onions--get a chance to infuse into that light, buttery bread.

Let's do this!

Bacon first:  I cut off a couple inches of bacon off a pack of 12 and cooked them up.  It's easier this way--the pieces are already pieces!

Cut up your bacon with kitchen shears

Cut up your green onions and the pepper jack.

Chop chop!  Cube cube!

Then get your other ingredients together. If you don't, it's a mess! Mise enplace!

Just a handful of ingredients!

Dry ingredients (flour, corn meal, baking powder, and salt)--mix them together.

The cornmeal makes the dough nice and tender!

Then your wet ingredients (cream and eggs)--whisk!

Cream and eggs...two very good things.

Now this step is the key.

1. Butter should be cold.
2. Cut up butter into small pieces to help yourself out.
3. Use your fingers to incorporate the butter. Those dough cutter things don't seem to work for me--my fingers do though!  
4. I don't want to rush you, but try to do this step quickly.  You don't want to warm up the butter too much.

Remember, cold butter!

Then add your drys and your wets together and incorporate with a fork.  It doesn't have to be completely incorporated--the dough will look shaggy is how Joy the Baker puts it. Once again, I have found the less I play with the dough, the fluffier they come out.

Looks kind of lumpy, but it's perfect.

Then I add my extras in and sort of stir those in. I say sort of because, once again, I don't want to mess with it too much.

I pour the dough onto a floured surface and sort of incorporate them a little better into the dough. Form into a disk, about 2 inches thick.

Easy peasy!

Then cut them into 6 or 8 pieces with a knife.

How many people are you having over tonight?

Transfer each piece (picking up any "extras" that happen to fall onto  your work surface and stuffing them back into the dough) to a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Brush the tops with some cream and sprinkle some kosher salt on top if you prefer.

Mmmm!

Then wait while it bakes.

Voila!

Cheesy goodness!

Oh, look at that cheese! Yum-O!

Tender, cheesy biscuit for you!

I would highly encourage serving these with a jam.  The sweet + savory just floats my boat!

If you have any biscuits left over the next day, good job you (it really is so easy to polish them all off on Day 1)!  Re-heat for 30 seconds in the microwave and enjoy!


Bacon, Pepper Jack, and Green Onion Biscuits
Adapted from a Joy the Baker recipe here

Ingredients:


2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornmeal
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
8 tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes
2 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream (plus more for brushing the tops of the biscuits)
2 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped
1/4 cup diced green onions
1/4 pound pepper jack cheese, cut into small cubes
Kosher salt

Directions:


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Incorporate cold butter into flour mixture with your fingers--you want smaller pieces of butter/flour throughout.

In a small bowl, whisk together eggs and heavy cream.  Add this to your flour/butter mixture.  Mix with fork until most of the flour is moist.  The dough will be shaggy.

Add bacon bits, green onions and pepper jack cheese and work together briefly.  Turn the mixture onto a floured surface and form into a disk, about 2 inches thick. Cut disk into 6 to 8 pieces and place onto parchment paper on baking sheet.  Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, remove from fridge and brush tops of biscuits with cream and sprinkle kosher salt if desired.

Bake on the middle rack for 24 to 27 minutes till golden brown.