#They're gonna be frozen solid once they're done lol

[sysig]

Can you please draw Edgar and Johnny stargazing or something like that

Day 8 - Stargazing

#My art #Requestober #Vargas #Nny #Edgar #I actually went and looked up what constellations are most visible around this time of year lol #I've never gone looking for Pegasus :0 I wonder how much we can see from here #Gotta be a clear night for it! Chilly #So cold that their noses have gone red haha - they're all bundled up but that car hood has to be freezing #I super didn't want to draw a car so I mostly cheated lol ♪ It's close enough! #I could've drawn them on a late-night picnic I guess but them laying on the hood of the car is just the Most Correct y'know? #They're gonna be frozen solid once they're done lol #Oh no however will they warm up lol #That said they're not even touching while sitting out here haha ♪ Nny doesn't like it! His arm is fully over his waist! #Did Nny have the beanie or did he borrow it? Who's to say #Edgar would have a matching scarf to go with his favourite shirt tho he's a dork like that <3 #Same reason he'd know which constellation Nny's pointing at like that - bookish nerd ♥ #Gosh this one was close to being posted outside of the usual 2:30 time! Hopefully that won't be a theme #Wish me luck ♫

[mrgan]

Buttermilk Biscuits

Everyone loves biscuits! And if you look up how to make them, basically every recipe is about the same. Mine isn't anything earth-shattering, but it does have one unusual step. Scroll on down to find out what it is! (The secret is folding more than you think you should—ed.)

Neven's Buttermilk Biscuits

Servings: 6-9 biscuits Time: 15 minute mix + 15 minute fold + 30 minute bake

INGREDIENTS:

280 g all-purpose flour

80 g high-gluten flour (or more APF)

25 g sugar

10 g salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

165 g (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, very cold

1 ¼ cup buttermilk, cold

DIRECTIONS:

First, the most important thing: keep everything as cold as you can. Place a large bowl in the fridge if you can; pop the whole butter sticks into the freezer as you prep.

Put a sheet of parchment paper on a half-sheet pan (18″ × 13″) as your final landing area for the cut biscuits. Pre-heat your oven to 400ºF with a rack in the top third of the oven.

In the cold bowl, whisk together your flour(s), sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Grab your whole sticks of cold butter and grate them (using the side with the large, pizza-cheese holes) into the bowl with the flour. Using a spatula, fold gently to combine, but without mushing up the butter shreds.

Pour in the buttermilk and fold again with that spatula. You're trying to kind of sort of get it uniform, but it'll still look like an awful mess. Your goal is just to integrate the big pool of dry flour from the bottom of the bowl into a shaggy mass in the middle.

Dust with flour a surface as big as you can afford: a workbench, a clean counter, a large cutting board. Gently flip your "dough" (lol) onto it and shake out any remaining flour from the bowl. It will look like an intimidating, dry mound; that's to be expected.

Grab a bench scraper or another thin, flat-sided tool. (A small, flexible cutting board works.) Now press gently from the sides and the top of your pile to form a sort of tight box. Don't squeeze it like Play-Doh™, but do try to pack it.

Using your scraper tool, go under the sides of the dough and make sure it's not stuck to the work surface. Still using the scraper to help you, flip one third from any side over the middle; then flip the remaining third to make a thicker shape with 2 folds in it, like a letter (you know how we all fold letters all the time these days?) Press down to get the whole thing to the original, starting height again. This is your basic biscuit-folding move; this is what builds those flaky layers, butter being laminated between strata of flour.

Here comes the unusual part of my recipe: where most write-ups will tell you to repeat this two or three times, I'm going to suggest that you do so a dozen times. That's right, get a solid 36 folds in there (each step creates 3 "folds"). The thing is, I don't "mix" my dough much in the previous steps, so this folding is how we'll get the whole thing together and develop lots of layers. If it sounds like a lot of work, don't worry; once you figure out the folding move (which you have to do either way), it only gets easier as you repeat it.

The dough should keep getting more flexible and easier to work with as the flour is integrated into it. If you start to feel some sticking, add a bit of flour to the sticky spots, but don't go wild with it. If the whole thing sticks to the work surface, use that scraper and move along and under the sides again to free it, and maybe add a bit of flour there.

Toward the last 3-4 folds, you can start using a rolling pin to ensure an even height to your dough. The end result should be a rectangle 1.5" thick and maybe 9" × 13" in size, fairly smooth and without any huge spots of butter or flour in it. Press in the sides to ensure a square-ish appearance to the thing, but don't expect perfection.

Once you're satisfied with the final folded dough, cut off those raggedy sides; they'd impede a clean vertical rise of your biscuits. Use your scraper tool—or a big knife—to cut about ½" off each side so the remaining rectangle is super sharp and even. Cut straight down with no sawing motion; just slam straight down confidently. I believe in you.

Using the same BAM! cutting motion, divide your dough rectangle into 6-9 biscuits; how many is up to you and your idea of what looks good and what's possible with the dough. Move the cut biscuits gently—separating from the work surface with that scraper tool if nedded—to the prepared sheet pan with the parchment paper on it. Keep a 1-2" space between your biscuits as they will expand some during the bake.

Discard the cut-off dough… I'm just kidding, come on. Take those end scraps and press them together from their sides to make a sort of rectangle with them. Letter-fold the rectangle again as best as you can, press down to make it neat, and cut however many biscuits it will produce (2? 3?) Cut off the sides again and press them into one wacky biscuit that'll rise unevenly but still be delicious. This should be your only un-square biscuit. Move all the new biscuits to the prepared sheet pan.

Grab another ¼ cup buttermilk and brush the tops of your biscuits with it; just enough to cover them, without getting goopy. Pop the whole thing into the oven and set a timer for 20 minutes. Rotate halfway through that time if you're around.

Check your biscuits' appearance: golden, with some dark areas along the top? Are the bottoms also developing a nice crust? You might not be done after 20 minutes, so feel free to set a timer for another 3-12 minutes, as needed.

When your biscuits look so good you want to build an ethical photo-sharing platform just to show them to the world, remove them from the oven. Feel free to brush them with butter. (Just running that remaining half a stick of butter over them like lip gloss will do.) Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before eating them.

PRO TIPS:

Try to find full-fat buttermilk. Sometimes it's called "Bulgarian style" or another exotic name that means it's flavorful and good.

You can freeze unbaked biscuits. Once your biscuits are cut and on the sheet pan, place the whole sheet pan in the freezer for 2 hours, uncovered. When the biscuits are rock-hard, move them to a freezer bag, fold to get all the air out of the bag, close, and store in the freezer for, like, 3 months or so. Bake from frozen (DO NOT THAW) and add 5-15 minutes to the bake time, until they look delectable.

Do you think grating butter is weird? Are you weirded out by it? You can also cut it to a fine dice and then press it into flat discs in the flour using your hands. It's a free country.

Leftover biscuits should be stored in a closed container once they're fully cooled off. You can keep them around on the counter for 2-3 days, and reheat in a low oven, either whole or split.

I'm gonna hide a Mega Pro Tip here where no one will read it: buttermilk is incredibly delicious and you should just drink it out of a glass.