Cinnamon Biscuits with an Apple Cider Glaze

The fall flavors for the menu have extended to the biscuits. I have never made a lot of flavored biscuits, but I have several recipes picked out to try. I once saw a scone cookbook, and I really wanted to bake my way through it. The cookbook had many intriguing flavor combinations. I can't find that cookbook anywhere, so I got the idea to just do it with biscuits. So today I baked sweet cinnamon biscuits with an apple cider glaze. 

Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits with Apple Cider Glaze

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

6 tablespoons butter, cold

1/2 cup buttermilk (or whole milk with 1/2 tablespoon vinegar)

1/4 cup apple cider (can sub apple juice)

Apple Cider Glaze:

1 cup confectioners sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon apple cider, may add more apple cider a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency

Preheat oven to 475°F. Prepare your cast iron skillet with a little oil. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or with two forks. Stir in buttermilk and apple cider until just combined. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Lightly flour hands and fold the dough over a few times dusting with flour as you go. Pat the dough into a large disc and roll with rolling pin to get the shape of it to match your cast iron skillet. It will be an inch thick in the center and mayber even thicker. Take a pastry scraper and cut the dough into squares as pictured below. Lift each biscuit into the cast iron skillet and place together into original disc shape. Place in oven and bake 15-16 minutes until tops are turning golden brown.

For the apple cider glaze:

Place the confectioners sugar into a small to medium bowl. Pour in the melted butter and add the apple cider one tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency for the glaze. My glaze was way too thin. I tried to fix it but gave up and knew the only way to make it was to pour the liquids into the confectioners sugar so you could judge how much liquid to pour in. 

Recipe adapted from: Add A Pinch

This is the method I have been using to make my biscuits. It prevents the dough getting tough from re-rolling and it prevents waste. Here I made a large disc of my original rolled out dough.

Here I test the size of that disc against the No. 8 cast iron skillet I am baking with.

Then I use the pastry scraper to make a sharp cut into the dough for the portions.

Then I fit the biscuit pieces into the skillet like a puzzle. If some don't fit, you can bake them separately in a smaller skillet. The biscuits pictured here were last week's chocolate chip biscuits. Enjoy!

In Victory,
Sherry