Uncooked Seed Encrusted Amaranth Biscuits from Heidi Swanson’s ‘Super Natural Cooking’, a totally fantastic cookbook. This made about 35 1.5 inch biscuits.
I *love* homemade, fresh from the oven biscuits. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, with tea or an afternoon snack, freshly baked biscuits go with so many things.
A typical biscuit recipe makes between 16 and 24 biscuits, which, unless I want to eat biscuits for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next four days, is simply too many for me to consume. Invariably, half of the biscuits end up getting stale and going to waste, and at the same time I’ll have eaten so many that I get burnt out on biscuits! At first, I would make a half or even a quarter recipe, but found that this was a lot of work for just a few biscuits. What a quandary: making a full recipe produces way too many, but it’s not worth the effort to make just three or four biscuits from scratch.
So, my solution is to make a full batch, bake a few, and simply freeze the extra uncooked biscuits. To freeze biscuits:
1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, wax paper, or aluminum foil. Place uncooked biscuits on the baking sheet, taking care that none of the biscuits are touching. You only need to leave 1/4 inch or so between the biscuits since the uncooked dough will keep its exact shape when frozen (unlike baking where the biscuits expand — I know, this seems obvious, but you might notice when you’re placing the biscuits on the baking sheet that your instinct is to space them as for baking).
2. Freeze the sheet of biscuits until the biscuits are frozen solid* (see note below) — at least 5-6 hour, or overnight. Remove biscuits from the tray and place in a freezer safe plastic bag. Since the biscuits are frozen solid, you won’t have a problem of them all freezing into one big dough heap.
3. When you want to cook the biscuits, remove as many as desired from the bag and place them still frozen onto a baking sheet. Cook as you would normal (unfrozen) biscuits, but adding about 8-10 (or longer for large biscuits) since the dough with thaw in the oven.
Fifteen 1 1/2 inch biscuits about to go into the freezer
This way you can have fresh baked biscuits whenever you want, and you need only bake as many or as few as you’d like. Problem solved!
*Note: Freezing the biscuits until solid is very important! The first time I tried freezing biscuits, I simply put all the uncooked biscuits into a ziploc bag and threw it in the freezer. Big mistake. I ended up with a big frozen dough ball, and to get individual biscuits, I had to partially thaw the dough ball, which would then get thrown back into the freezer to re-freeze. The thaw-freeze-thaw-freeze cycle left me with dried out, only slightly better than mediocre biscuits.
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March 22nd, 2008at 7:32 pm(#)
I’m really excited to try this! I love biscuits, but like you can’t get inspired to go through all that work for just a few. Lots of my meals are meals “for one” so the idea of baking a few at a time is awesome. Thanks, Jen.
I don’t have the cookbook you mention. Can you share the recipe? either here or by email. They sound wonderful!
March 23rd, 2008at 12:00 pm(#)
Here’s a link to the Seed-Encrusted Amaranth Biscuit from Heidi Swanson’s ‘Super Natural Cooking’ from Google Books:
Seed Encrusted Amaranth Biscuits
March 24th, 2008at 5:28 pm(#)
I’m a huge fan of biscuits and would like to make them more often. But freezing them is a fabulous idea and makes an easier breakfast! Just pop in the oven and fresh biscuits are served!
Yes, Heidi’s cookbook is really fabulous!
February 11th, 2010at 9:43 am(#)
Do they really taste as good???
February 11th, 2010at 1:53 pm(#)
TheFamousStacie — Yes they do! I don’t think they suffer at all from being frozen, and when you bake them they have that hot-from-the-oven goodness just can’t be beat. I also often freeze pie crust, puff pastry, and things like chicken pot pie with biscuit topping with good results.
March 22nd, 2010at 8:04 am(#)
Is it possible to have the recipe for Amaranth biscuits. I think this will be a superb way of storing and batch making for my B&B
March 22nd, 2010at 8:11 am(#)
Hi Ruth – Thanks for commenting! You can find the recipe here: Seed Crusted Amaranth Biscuits. You may consider experimenting with different flours to achieve whatever consistency you desire (i.e. I’ve made them again substituting some AP flour for some of the whole wheat flour). I hope you enjoy them!
December 24th, 2010at 12:36 pm(#)
Thanks!! I needed to know how to freeze biscuits. I want to have a baking day once a week, and happy to know that I don’t have to bake all the biscuits at once. I do occasionally buy frozen biscuits to bake, but here they are very expensive. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year.
January 10th, 2011at 1:05 pm(#)
Thanks so much! I just found a good biscuit recipe, but since we are “eating better” this year, the 14 biscuits the recipe makes is a few more than just my husband, 2 year old and I should be eating at one sitting. I will freeze the extras right away so neither hubby nor I are “tempted” by extras at the dinner table.
January 11th, 2011at 8:40 am(#)
Cate — Glad to help! I am typically cooking for 1 or 2, so have gotten really good at freezing things :) Lately I’ve been doing lots of soups and stews, and the little ‘snack’ sized ziploc bags perfectly hold one portion.
January 27th, 2011at 5:42 am(#)
Can one freeze buttermilk biscuits using your metuhod and if so does the baking time change? Thanks for any info. Fred
November 6th, 2011at 5:44 pm(#)
Just what I was looking for! Cooked only half my dough and didn’t know if the rest would have to go to waste. Thanks!
November 13th, 2011at 9:24 am(#)
How long have you found that this dough will last in the freezer and still bake up fresh with an acceptable result?
January 6th, 2012at 11:11 am(#)
Thanks so much, I really need a recipe like this as it can greatly cut down on morning breakfast prep if I don’t have to make up a dough. Do you know if this works for yeast biscuits? And would you raise them then freeze? Thanks.
January 7th, 2012at 6:36 pm(#)
Hi Elizabeth,
I’ve never tried this technique with yeast biscuits, and I think you’d probably need to do something different to take the rise into account. What I would do is prep the yeast biscuits as normal, then par bake and freeze. To par bake, just remove the biscuits from the oven about 10 minutes before they’d typically be done. Then, just pop a par-baked biscuit into the oven and finish it for 10-15 minutes until it’s golden. Does that make sense?
September 11th, 2012at 11:23 am(#)
I enjoy making and “eating” biscuits., but there are times
that I would like to have them made ahead of time, like when
I have company. Thanks for this tip. Yes, I will try
making a batch, and then freeze them.
October 31st, 2012at 3:47 pm(#)
Great article!
Can anyone attest to how long the biscuits will keep in the freezer? any problem with freezer burn?
…Or is freezer burn only with meat? IDK, I’m a dude…
February 19th, 2013at 5:24 pm(#)
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