When it comes to the holidays, there’s no celebrity chef I turn to more than Ina Garten. She is, in my eyes, the queen of Thanksgiving cooking.
Whether it’s a “grown-up” mac and cheese or the perfect potato gratin, Garten has a recipe for all of your holiday needs.
So when I decided to try making homemade biscuits for the first time — despite being a very amateur baker — I put my faith in the Barefoot Contessa.
Garten’s chive biscuits only require a few ingredients.
To make a batch of eight chive biscuits, you’ll need:
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 egg
- ½ cup of chopped fresh chives (Garten says you can also swap for fresh parsley)
- ¾ cup of half-and-half
- ¼ pound of cold unsalted butter, diced
- 1 tablespoon of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
First, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and mixed my dry ingredients.
I added the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar to the bowl of my electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Then I added the diced butter and began to mix on low speed.
Garten says you should mix the butter until it becomes the “size of peas.”
With the mixer still on low, I added the half-and-half.
I stirred until everything was just mixed, per Garten’s instructions.
Then I added the chopped chives.
Garten says to beat the mixture until it’s just combined.
My dough was ready in mere minutes.
I’m not much of a baker and had never made dough before trying this recipe, so to see it transform in a few minutes was, honestly, pretty exciting for me.
I felt like I was in the “Great British Bake Off” tent!
I placed my dough on a well-floured board and began to knead it lightly.
Although I’ve seen people kneading dough on TV countless times, I’ve never actually done it myself. But I found some helpful tips on The Spruce Eats with a quick Google search.
If you’re a baking novice like me, it’s probably helpful to know why we even need to knead the dough. Kneading helps develop the gluten, which gives biscuits (or bread) both structure and softness.
I used the heels of my hands to push the dough down, then outward. Then I folded the dough in half, toward myself, and used the heels of my hands to push it down and out again. I also made sure to add flour whenever the dough felt sticky as I repeated the steps.
I kneaded my dough into a rectangle, per Garten’s instructions.
I attempted to knead the dough to about ¾-inch thick, although my kneading was a bit uneven, and some biscuits came out a tad thinner.
I’d make sure to keep the dough on the thicker side — it results in fluffier biscuits.
Then I cut out my biscuits.
Garten recommends using a 2 ½-inch round cutter for this step, but using the top of a mason jar also worked well in a pinch.
After shaping my biscuits, I prepped the egg wash.
I mixed one egg with one tablespoon of water and voilà, it was ready.
I brushed each biscuit with the egg wash — which helps give the biscuits a golden-brown color — before throwing my pan into the preheated oven.
My biscuits were ready in 22 minutes.
Garten recommends baking the biscuits for 20 to 22 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when the “tops are browned and the insides are firm,” she said.
Garten’s chive biscuits were really easy to make.
Garten’s chive biscuits looked fantastic with their lovely golden hue, and the tops had a satisfying crisp that gave way to the buttery and fluffy middle.
There was a hint of saltiness in the biscuits, while the chives added a nice pop of color. And what I loved most about the recipe was that the biscuits were actually fun to make — even for a novice baker! This would be a fun recipe to whip up on Thanksgiving with any younger family members who want to help in the kitchen.
Sure, store-bought is fine, but why not try homemade? It might just make you feel worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake.
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