Table Talk » Today's Experiment was Saffron Biscuits

Today's menu included a pressure cooker version of this Middle Eastern Slow-Cooked Stew with Lamb, Chickpeas, and Figs. Normally I would pair this with couscous, but today's client prefers not to have grain or pasta side dishes. But they love biscuits, so I decided to pair it with saffron biscuits. I searched the internet for saffron biscuit recipes but didn't come up with anything that would work. The only savory saffron biscuit that I found took hours to prepare and the rest of the recipes were for sweet saffron biscuits. So I decided to take my favorite biscuit recipe and turn it into a saffron biscuit.

My biscuit recipe is adapted from Entertaining Light by Martha Rose Shulman. A personal chef colleague shared this recipe with me a few years ago and it is my go-to biscuit recipe.

To turn my biscuit recipe into a saffron biscuit, I infused the buttermilk with saffon and added some white pepper.

Here's the golden saffron biscuit dough ready to be cut into biscuits.

saffron biscuit dough.jpg

Ready to go in the oven.

saffron biscuits ready to bake

Piping hot from the oven.

saffron biscuits done.jpg

We (my client and I) tried them hot from the oven and we both loved them. You can definitely taste the saffron, but they are not strongly flavored with saffron, which is perfect. The golden color is very appealing. They'll go perfectly with the stew.

Saffron Biscuits

1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 pinch saffron
olive oil spray
14 ounces all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Warm buttermilk and add saffron. Set aside and let saffron infuse the buttermilk.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with nonstick aluminum foil. Spray foil with olive oil spray.

Add flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and white pepper to food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process to combine. Add cubed butter and pulse until the mixture has the consistency of coarse cornmeal. Place mixture in a bowl.

Stir the saffron-infused buttermilk into the mixture. Gather up the dough and gently knead it, not working the dough like bread but just pressing it together so that it comes together in a cohesive lump. It will be slightly sticky, so lightly flour your hands. The less you work the dough, the lighter your biscuits will be.

Roll out to a thickness of about 3/4 inch and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until they're beginning to brown.

Posted February 11, 2008 8:53 PM in

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4 Comment(s)

MarcyK said… (on February 11, 2008 at 22:51 PM #)

Awesome experiment! I'm totally impressed.

Sharon Worster said… (on February 12, 2008 at 09:35 AM #)

Yummy!!!! I'm glad they turned out so well Patti. :) ~Sharon

Debra Lane said… (on February 12, 2008 at 14:03 PM #)

They look beautiful with the golden color from the saffron. I can think of these complementing many dishes that you wouldn't ordinarily think of biscuits for.

Cindy Barnard said… (on February 12, 2008 at 18:38 PM #)

These look so good. I love saffron and all things "bread".
Will definitely give these a try.
I have such a hard time finding full-fat buttermilk.
What is the point of fat-free buttermilk, for goodness sake!


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