The Gourmet Mama

With Valentine`s Day right around the corner, it`s time to start thinking about whipping up some delicious treats for your family. Speaking from experience, kids aren`t usually interested in super fancy Valentine food, so here are some old-fashioned baking powder biscuits turned into something fancy.

I`ve included a tutorial today on how to get your biscuits to be light and flaky, it`s easier than you think!

Basic Baking Powder Biscuits

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) margarine
3/4 cup milk or water

Mix the dry ingredients together and add the margarine. If you don`t have a special pastry cutter to break the margarine into small pieces, just use your hands and rub the flour into the butter until you have pea sized chunks throughout the flour mixture.

Make a well in the middle and add the milk. Mix it up with a fork and then dump it out on a lightly floured surface. I use a flexible cutting board, since this keeps the mess off the counter and is easy to clean.

Now, to get flaky biscuits, there`s a special trick. It`s all in the folding. You want to handle the biscuit dough as little as possible or it will get tough on you and end up in chewy biscuits, so as soon as you have it mixed, flatten it out with your palms until it looks like this:

Then fold it over, like so:

And flatten again:

Repeat this three or four times and then roll out your biscuits like you would normally.

Cut out your biscuits. I`ve used a heart shaped cutter here for Valentine`s Day, but you can do any shape you like. If you have no cookie cutters, just dip the rim of a glass in flour and use that to punch out rounds.

Bake your biscuits for about 10 min. or until light golden brown. See those flaky layers?

Enjoy with butter . . .

or get creative!