Biscuits

I love biscuits... However, I have yet to be successful in making ones that are better than the Pillsbury country biscuits...
But the ones I JUST finished making, come pretty close. And I'm pretty sure with a tiny bit of tweaking, that they would be better. They are defiantly prettier! And made all by myself, instead of opening a can and plopping them on a baking sheet... Although they are almost as fast to make from scratch... and with really simple ingredients
Two things I realized while I was making these beautiful biscuits:

• I don't own a pastry cutter, and I should get one... after all, it was one of my favourite kitchen tools, since it looks like a stirrup (and anything i can relate to horses, i like!)
• I also don't own a brush... I went to brush the tops of the biscuits with the egg and milk mixture and that is when it hit me...(after searching every cupboard and drawer) Why the hell don't we have a kitchen brush???

AND: Since the biscuits are nice and flaky, I can rip off little pieces and actually eat them (since I STILL can't open my jaw after surgery)


I used the biscuit recipe (and watched the biscuit video) over at the Joy of Baking (one of my most favourite sites)
This is my brand new rolling pin (because I didn't have one of these either, and when i went to walmart to pick up a few things for the Stew i am making tomorrow (stay tuned!), I splurged the $9.96 and got me a rollin' pin!
And the biscuit cutter set that my mom (err, i mean "Santa") put in my stocking at Christmas
AND my new pot holders I grabbed from Dollaramma, because i lost my old pink ones last time we moved, and I'm pretty sure that the boyfriend hated having to use pink potholders.
Life without a pastry cutter... Turned out that it wasn't as hard as i first imagined, but definatly easier with the cutter. (next Walmart splurge item, i do believe)
Aren't they pretty? I think that one in the middle looks a bit like a Shark (and more importantly, Bruce from Finding Nemo)

I'm not really sure what I will do differently next time I try these, maybe a little more butter in them, since they were a teeny bit dry, and maybe I wont brush the tops with the egg/milk (or in my case, improvise and slather with the wooden spoon dipped in the egg/milk mixture)... We shall see... They were so fast and easy to make, that it won't be hard to find an excuse to make these again... I'm pretty sure that I could even handle it after a long day at the barn when I'm exhausted.
OH, and one more thing, Since we are at a higher elevation here, I lowered the temperature in the oven from 400 F to 350 F .... old trick I learned from my Mom.... kind of ingrained in my head: she bakes almost everything at 350 F... Almost as if she has a fear of turning the oven higher than 400 F..... In some google-ing, I discovered that it might be a myth, but it's always worked for my mom, so it can't hurt... and my biscuits turned out amazing, so I'm sticking to it