Biscuits and Gravy

Chicken and dumplings! Mmmm!

The confusion is further fueled because Bisquik biscuits magically become dumplings when the raw dough is ladeled on top of stew.

Which is good enough, but many people have never had a proper 'from scratch' Southern biscuit, which is almost more of a pastry dough. You use a pastry cutter to cut cold lard into the (sifted) flour and then add the milk all at once. When kneaded, the little pellets of lard flatten and the resulting biscuit separates into light, flakey layers.

In theory. In practice, my biscuits wouldn't win any awards. But, hey, I'll eat anything cooked in lard.

I must be the only one who thinks biscuits and gravy are blegh! Give me honey or jam on my biscuits any day.

Ahem ... no, you're not! 

I'm not a gravy fan at all (not that American kind, anyway), but I do loooooove freshly baked warm biscuits with honey! YUM!

*****

The frozen dumplings my MIL served a few days ago were just as heavy as any scone, certainly not like a nice light fresh biscuit.

If you had a heavy scone, it wasn't made properly. They should be light and fluffy.

No. American dumplings are American biscuit dough cooked in liquid.  Usually it's some species of stew, but my mom has a great recipe for dumplings cooked in caramel.

Oh my word.  My family used to make caramel dumplings!!  I've hardly ever found others who have tried them.  We'd have them with a healthy serving of whipped cream or ice cream on top.  Oh heaven and overindulgent richness.  Talk about sugar overload!!

mmm ... biscuits & gravy.
I could really go this just now!

mmm ... biscuits & gravy.
I could really go this just now!

Yeah, I totally shouldn't have just clicked on this.   *eats a crumpet instead*

I must be the only one who thinks biscuits and gravy are blegh! Give me honey or jam on my biscuits any day.

I do like biscuits and gravy once in a while, but most often had them with honey or jam (or even just butter - yum!) because the greasy gravy always upsets my stomach, and most of the time I just wasn't in the mood for it anyway.  I only ate biscuits and gravy or chicken fried steak with gravy only about once or twice a year anyway.  I did use the cream gravy sort of method to make a nice peppercorn cream sauce for a strip steak we had a while back and DH loved it!
My MIL dumplings taste just like a biscuit piled on top of some mince and gravy.  Pretty tasty!  I never much cared for the little doughy dumplings in American chicken and dumplings, but I always loved the flavour of the stew.  I just ate around those parts because the texture was odd for me.  Maybe I should make it with the English dumplings on top instead!     That sounds so good!

Ahem ... no, you're not! 

Sorry Chary, I must not have read your posts, they were lost in the tide of pro-gravy comments!

I must be the only one who thinks biscuits and gravy are blegh! Give me honey or jam on my biscuits any day.

No.  I'd never choose it from a breakfast menu.  Give me eggs Benedict or french toast and bacon any day!

Heading into kitchen to make biscuits and gravy now.  I've been craving it all week thanks to you guys, but haven't had time to cook since I was finishing up my last week at work before going on leave.

I'll be doing a bacon gravy as it's the only meat we have in the whole house today--one of the perks of biscuits and gravy, you can make it with so few ingredients.