Orange Pecan Biscuits

Tender breakfast biscuits with the crunch of pecans, zesty orange, and a hint of spice finished with a tantalizingly sweet drizzle.

Orange Pecan Biscuits

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

Welcome to Baking Bloggers! We get together each month to post on a topic of some sort of baked recipe, which we all vote on. For September we decided to do biscuit and scone recipes. For my selection today, I have made an orange pecan roll, which to me, is the lovechild between a cinnamon-raisin biscuit and one of those Pillsbury orange rolls-Danish sort of things that come in the tube.

You may have seen me lately posting the lower carb version of the cinnamon-raisin biscuit. This particular biscuit today is just “normal” and not reduced at all. So if you like one type or the other you can kind of go back and forth between them to see what adjustments need to be made if you want to flip one or the other low-carb or orange-pecan. Eventually I will have all of that posted, but since it has taken me a long time to just get these up, one shouldn’t hope for that too soon.

There are too many kinds of recipes, and too little time, right?

You might wonder what the difference is between a biscuit and a scone? Well, nothing really. The point you should keep in mind is that outside of the USA, cookies are called biscuits, and American biscuits are called scones.

Biscuits and scones can be made in a variety of ways: there are dropped biscuits, rolled biscuits, scones baked as a boule or shaped into small rounds. And I am certain there are others (but I haven’t finished my morning coffee yet so am taking a pass!)

If you don’t make your biscuits right, that’s just tough! (If you overwork it)

Essentially with biscuits and scones, a baking fat, usually shortening, lard, butter (or whatever artistic combination thereof you prefer) is cut into the flour which has leavening (such as salt and baking powder) added. The mixture is combined until it just holds together, and either gently rolled out or patted into shape. It is important to not overwork the dough, because if you mix or knead it too much, it develops the gluten in the flour, which is fabulous in breads, but not so much for a tender, flaky biscuit.

Orange Pecan Biscuits

Servings: 8
Time: 25mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
zest of half an orange
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/3 cup chopped toasted pecans
3/4 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Drizzle:

1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
1-3/4 teaspoons orange juice (approximate)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons finely chopped toasted pecans
zest of half an orange (the other half)

Method:

Preheat oven to 450°F.
Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, dry milk powder, cinnamon and zest of half the orange (save the rest for the drizzle).
Cut in the shortening using either a pastry cutter or your hands until it resembles coarse crumbs.
Fold in the pecans.
Stir the vanilla into the orange juice then add that to the dough, mixing until it comes together, but do not over mix.
Pat out on a silpat mat on a baking sheet half inch thick or so, cut out your biscuits and space them apart on the silpat.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.
Whisk the sifted powdered sugar (sift it so it does not have lumps of any sort) with the vanilla and orange juice until it is a drizzling consistency.
For easier drizzle, put the icing into a ziploc sandwich bag, press out all air, and snip a small hold in the corner- not too big.
Squeeze the icing down inside the bag and drizzle over warm biscuits (I bunch the biscuits together on the pan so I don’t get half the drizzle on the pan), then sprinkle with finely chopped pecans and the rest of the orange zest.