Susan Branch's Best Biscuits

I've had the most glorious couple weeks of reading, totally immersed in Susan Branch's memoirs.

She is an old friend whom I've never met. I have her cookbooks, her address book, her birthday book, her stickers, her calendars. I love her work with real handwriting and her paintings and her quotes. She has brought such joy to my life.

The one on the right was actually published first, but chronologically it comes third. I began with The Fairy Tale Girl, then Martha's Vineyard Isle of Dreams, and am now reading A Fine Romance Falling in Love with the English Countryside.

If you are a fan you will adore these books! And if you don't know Susan Branch these books are a good introduction.

This morning I decided to make her biscuit recipe. I have others in my recipes folder, but I've never posted about hers. In fact, I'm quite sure I made them only once. They are in her first cookbook.

You may see a couple changes I made after the first time I made them. I thought they were too salty so I reduced both the baking powder and the salt. Today I also substituted buttermilk for heavy cream because I didn't have any cream, and I love buttermilk in baked goods. Another difference for me is that I used a 9x13 pan sprayed with cooking spray. I've had such good luck using it before when I bake biscuits. I didn't butter both sides, just the top, but then we used the extra butter for the biscuits when they were cooked and we split them open. They cooked a little longer than hers, probably because of the different pan. I'd say 25 minutes or so.

They were excellent, perfect, delicious. Tom and I loved them, and then our beloved neighbors popped in and enjoyed them, too. Especially Hazel. She may have eaten four!

I'll put this up on the Weekend Cooking site.