Friday Food #27: Peach Biscuits

Nick is like his cousin Ben in waking up on weekend (and other!) mornings with a yen for baking. Hmm, wonder where they got that? One morning a couple of years ago, we had fresh peaches, and I saw no reason to bake. After all, fresh peaches on cereal are one of my favorite breakfasts. But Nick insisted, and even came up with an idea: "how about peach biscuits?" After we got over my desire for shortbread (real New England peach shortbread, with biscuits and whipped cream), we invented these.

You'll notice that I don't roll and cut out the biscuits. That would be hard to do with the little peachy chunks anyway, but I never do. They are lighter if they're handled less, after all, so if you don't mind the lumpy tops of drop biscuits, go ahead and make all your biscuits this way. (If you leave the peaches out this is really a perfectly fine biscuit recipe.)

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbl. sugar
1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)
1 cup buttermilk (or, 1 cup milk left to stand 10 minutes with 1 tbl. vinegar or lemon juice)
1 cup chopped fresh peaches (chop into bite-sized pieces)
Optional: sugar & cinnamon

Preheat oven to 425. Grease or spray a large cookie sheet.

Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar in a large bowl. Quickly stir in the butter and buttermilk to make a wet batter (sort of like muffins, though you want to get the lumps out). Fold in the peaches.

Drop by quarter-cupfuls onto the prepared baking sheet. If you like, sprinkle the tops with sugar & cinnamon. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and crusty.

These are best consumed as soon as they've cooled enough to eat them. They're ok reheated, but much much better right out of the oven.