I am a big fan of pumpkins. I love their flavor, I love the way they look (so cubby and round) and I love what they add to so many recipes. From pumpkin muffins and pumpkin cheesecake to these fabulous pumpkin scones, I love them all!
A few nights ago, my brother sent me a picture of some beautiful biscuits he just baked up and it got me thinking about how wonderful and flaky a good biscuit can be, but… what if I added something to my biscuit recipe? Something that would add a bit of moisture and maybe a little sweetness? After a little brainstorming, pumpkins came to mind. Of course! Pumpkin biscuits would be just perfect warm with some of the creamed honey that I found at a local farm stand last week.
This recipe comes together quick and creates beautiful tall biscuits with lots of layers and a great amount of moisture. Lets get them started…
The first step for these biscuits is to cube up 1 stick of butter and set it into the freezer while you gather the other ingredients. This will ensure that the butter is cold enough to not become too soft during the kneading process. This recipe also requires buttermilk, but if you do not have any on hand, do not despair! You can simply add 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice into 1/3 cup of whole milk and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Soon, you will have buttermilk!
While your butter is chilling and your milk is curdling, add 2 cups of flour, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda into a large bowl and whisk to combine.
Now cut the chilled butter cubes into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender. You are looking for the butter to be about the size of peas and fairly evenly mixed throughout the dough.
Now add 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree and 1/3 cup of buttermilk and mix until it is just about combined. Transfer the dough out onto a floured surface and gently knead 4-5 times. If the dough is too sticky, dust with a bit more flour in between kneads.
Once the dough is workable and no longer sticky, roll it out to about 3/4 inch thickness using a floured rolling pin. Dip a round pastry cutter into some flour and cut out as many 2 inch rounds as you can out of the dough. If you have enough extra dough left over, gather it up and re-roll it out to get one more biscuit. Trust me, you will want to get as many biscuits as possible!
Place the biscuits onto a buttered or parchment lined baking sheet and place the sheet into the freezer while the oven preheats (about 10 minutes). This will help to get the butter nice and cold right before baking, which will make the biscuits layer upwards creating great height, instead of melting out and getting flat.
Bake the biscuits at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes and as soon as they are done, brush them with melted butter and transfer them onto a cooling rack.
They smell great and are a beautiful deep orange color. These biscuits are their absolute best about 5 minutes after they come out of the oven. They are great with butter and honey, but I picked up a jar of creamed honey from a local farm stand last week and it was just perfect with these warm pumpkin biscuits!!
These biscuits ride the line between sweet and savory. So you can have them with breakfast or as a dessert, they really fit in anywhere and because they do, there is absolutely no reason that I can think of why you shouldn’t make these very soon…