Blue Cheese Biscuits with Pinot Noir Butter.
Probably not. You probably don’t care because uh, hello… you have a real life.
But I don’t have any friends and need to tell someone, so you’re out of luck today.
I went on a hunt for a new scent for my husband. Basically, because I have NO IDEA WHAT TO GET HIM FOR CHRISTMAS (even though you gave me some excellent ideas last week) and have almost considered buying Hickory Farms beef sticks for his stocking. Not joking.
I thought maybe I could get him some new cologne, although it is safe to say that I am obsessed with what he currently wears – Burberry Touch – and can hardly think straight when I smell it. Take that as you will.
Anyhoo. I joined the throngs of shoppers and since it was com-pah-letely insane out there in shop world, there were no little paper tester thingies to spray cologne on and place below your sniffer. Uh, problem!
So I sprayed it on myself. My arms… my hands… my neck… my elbow. That little crevice thing between my thumb and fore finger. About 13 different kinds. Not entirely sure why I found this to be a wise idea since I can barely stand in Bath and Body Works without sneezing my actual face off. Yes, my actual face. But I did it anyway. Me = loopy.
I was just soooo desperate.
After about 10 minutes I started to feel pretty ill. And I smelled like a man. Not a good man either. Like one of those dirty old men that drenches himself in cologne then puts on a fedora and heads to the nearest college watering hole hoping to pick up girls 40 years younger than him.
And just so you know, all these times I’m typing cologne? I’m saying it out loud like CO-LOG-NEE.
Then it gave me a migraine. I scrubbed my body down with soap and loofahs but to no avail – I could NOT get rid of the scentseses. I had to scrap all plans of exciting stuff I had going on at night, which was precisely nothing. I came home giftless but with one major decision: Mr. How Sweet will never wear anything but Burberry Touch for as long as he lives. Ever.
Even though I was on the verge of upchucking thanks to the manly fumes lingering on my body, I was starrrrrved. Holidays do that to you. So I ate an egg on top of one of these biscuits.
Oh… My… Gawd.
I made the biscuits earlier in the week – nervously, I should add, since they were a bit out of the flavor box even for ME. But the minute they came out of the oven, I inhaled three. THREE! Before I even snapped a shot, I gobbled them. Well, I gobbled 2 1/3 of them. Note picture #4.
Is it too wild to declare this my favorite thing I have made in all of 2011? Because I’m pretty sure it is. The flavor… OMG the flavor. Can’t even explain. Out of this world. So in love. One of my personal goals for 2011 was to challenge myself and bake more bread type things. I’m trying to experience as much bread making as I can in hopes that soon enough I’ll be able to develop my own yeasted bread recipes because that’s like, sort of hard. Do you want a fun goal for 2012? Do this.
I’m pretty sure that these biscuits and butter would make an excellent addition to your holiday cheese plate. And I’m ever surer that they’d make a fabulous side dish.
And a really good snack. (I should know.)
And even a nice little mouth for a mini sandwich. (Hello egg.)
And the best part of this whole thing? I opened a bottle of wine at 1 o’clock in the afternoon just to snap these photos for you. Oh… and to make butter. BUTTER. Butter with WINE in it. Butter made with wine! I have a TON of this butter left. I could not be more excited because the next thing it is going on? A thick, juicy piping hot filet. I may just die on the spot.
Ooooh and make sure you use some wine that you actually like to drink. I used La Crema because that’s what I drank in Sonoma with Christina, and it tasted gooooood. But you don’t have to listen to me. After all that time in wine country I still don’t know jack, and drink Riesling with tomato sauce and put ice cubes in my Merlot. Sorry.
Soooo yeah. No doubt, you gotta make these. Today please.
Blue Cheese Biscuits
[slightly adapted from my cranberry biscuits, which were adapted from bon appetit]
makes about 20 round biscuits
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold butter, cut into pieces
1 1/4 cups milk (whole or 2%)
6 ounces gorgonzola cheese (or your favorite blue), crumbled
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and whisk until combined. Using a fork, pastry blender or your hands, add butter pieces to the flour and mix until coarse little crumbles remain. Add in crumbled gorgonzola. Pour in milk and stir with a spoon until just combined, not overmixing. Use your hands if needed to bring the dough together – I did.
Use a 1/4 cup measure to drop batter onto a nonstick baking sheet, or press dough on a sheet of parchment paper or cutting board, then using a biscuit cutter to shape the dough into rounds. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until biscuits are golden brown.
Pinot Noir Butter
[slightly adapted from Bobby Flay’s Bar Americain]
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups pinot noir
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
pinch of black pepper
Bring the wine to a boil in a saucepan (be careful so it does not boil over!) and cook until reduced to just under  1/4 cup – this took me about 15 minutes. Let cool completely.
Once wine is cool, combine with softened butter, salt and pepper, and mix thoroughly to combine. I had some issues with the butter absorbing all of the wine, so what I did was place the entire bowl in the fridge, and pop it out every 15 minutes or so, mixing really well with a spoon until all of the wine mixed in. Once mixed completely, chill in the fridge for about 5 minutes, then form into a square or log with your hands and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready to use – best if used after 2-3 days so the flavors can mesh!
K thanks bye.
176 Comments on “Blue Cheese Biscuits with Pinot Noir Butter.”
Amazing, and I am going to use this pino noir butter as an excuse to have wine with breakfast:-)
Haha – I was going to say the same thing!! :) Love it.
That’s the best butter & biscuits I’ve ever seen! I believe in this, amen.
I am with you one the smell of burberry touch. I heart burberry touch on my man.
Did you try Gehr? It’s a Norwegian scent. In the US it’s sold only at Nordstroms and EPCOT, in the Norway pavilion. Gehr is second in my world of men’s fragrance.
Their womens’ scent, Laila, is divine too. If you brave the crowds again, take some paper with you :)
Nope, I’ve never smelled that, but now I want to go out and find it today!
Okay we must live in the same brain because every time I try to go shopping for a new scent/perfume, I do the same thing and most scents give me migraines. #idiot.
I love how you botch up plural nouns. “scentseses” – HA!
I’m so glad someone got that and didn’t think I actually spelled it wrong because I didn’t know any better.
Oh girl, you know how to cook! I went to bed last night thinking of your Jalapeno Cheese Bread, I need to make that! These blue cheese biscuits with the pinot noir butter, OMG! Enough said!
I can’t even find the right words to express my thoughts/feelings about these biscuits..I just have to figure out my schedule to squeeze a cheese shop in. I love you, I hate you, is running thru my head…I LOVE YOU!!! My waistline hates you.
PS. I love you more :)
These are stunning! So sophisticated, sexy and delicious. You make me miss cheese. Tony and the boys are really enjoying adventuring outside of the box with cheeses lately…I need to add some blue cheese to my next batch of gluten free biscuits.
did you use a specific type of blue? I like really strong ones myself.
and I’m not going to judge you for ice cubes in your Merlot, that’s still many steps above straight from the Franzia box : D
I don’t discriminate, but I tend to buy gorgonzola the most. And Franzia FTW! :)
I may just have to open a bottle of wine at 7:40 in the morning in order to make this. YUM!
Wine butter on steak is like the best thing ever. I also have some wine salt that I bought in France because you can never have too much wine in a meal.
Wine SALT?! I need. Now.
that butter is unreal! i’d make it for the pretty color alone!
i have no idea what to get my husband either. he LITERALLY has everything. men.
Butter made with wine sounds amazing!! I have done the same thing as you before with all the cologne (or COL-OG-NEE) nesting… and I felt nauseous after. But if they made perfumes that smell like your kitchen when your gooey chocolatey baked goods come out of the oven, I’d literally bathe myself in them (well except maybe for eau de bleu cheese.. that probably wouldn’t sell so well.)
I have all these ingredients…
… yay!!!
Red wine butter. RED WINE BUTTER. My heart doesn’t know what to do with this. Does. Not. Know.
I want to slather it all over my face and die.
I’m pretty much thinking you’re an evil genius.
Burberry Touch…I am going to try to remember that b/c I am always on the hunt for new scents for Scott that don’t give me a headache or smell like…Old Spice. Lol
And I know what you mean about men’s scents getting in every crevice and being unable to get them off. I think women’s are like that too, but men’s are worse and if Scott wears cologne I hate…I feel like it lingers all over me, the house, the car, everything…forever!
Butter. And wine. In one. Good call.
And ice cubes in your merlot. I love your honesty!
this sounds just SO perfect…i miss eating blue cheese!
OMG… that’s right, people can’t eat blue cheese while pregnant? Crap, I may never have a kid now.
Wine AND butter?
I just can’t get myself to like blue cheese but next time we have steak, this butter is DEFINITELY happening.
My husband never liked it before, and then I once made a creamy blue cheese sauce that we put on filets. Now he loves it! Try that. ;)
I literally laugh out loud, through the drool, every time I read your blog. And, just so you know, my husband puts a Hickory Farms beef stick in my stocking every Christmas. Oops, that definitely sounds dirtier than it is…
Hahaha, thank you Kim!
Holy wow. You’re my absolute favorite, I just needed to get that out there. Pinot Noir butter sounds pretty flipping amazing all on its own, but then you mention it with a steak and HELLO! Genius. I can’t wait to make it with my new favorite wine I found out here (I can literally drink the bottle like it’s grape juice). I almost forgot about the biscuits! My husband is going to flip out when I make those. Seriously, you’re a recipe genius (and your words are pretty darn fantabulous as well).
My husband and I haven’t bought gifts for each other for years. Makes life so much easier and means there is no stress about what to buy at Christmas.
Also means I have more money to spend on kitchenware … :-)
Girl, seriously? Something I would NEVER think up.
Probably two of my most favorite things! I have to make this!
Jessica, this sounds so amazing! I know it may sound blasphemous, but I dont really like blue cheese. Do you think I could make this w/ goat or feta? Thanks!
Yes definitely! I’d actually probably make it with a cheddar or something a little more sharp? Either way they will work!
freaking wine butter? Are you kidding me right now?
I need to leave work and go home and make boozy butter immediately.
Wait…what?? Mind = blown. These look amazing!! That butter in itself is worth making. Imagine it on a nicely seared steak (like you recommended)? Oh wow.
All plans of salad for lunch are now off.
I am the exact same way with burberry touch. It takes everything in my power to not go up to men that are wearing it and asking them if I could please please have their babies.
Love the blue cheese and the wine butter also…. just not as much as the bb touch
Pinot noir butter, now that sounds interesting. But I bet it is delicious melting all over one of those delicious blue cheese loaded biscuits! I will take one, or a whole plate please!
You have the most creative mind in America. I think that should be the title of your cookbook.
The color of that butter is amazing. AMAZING!
Oh. My. Word. This post has got to be a joke. Blue cheese. Biscuits. Pinot noir. Butter. If I was writing down my favorite things in life, those would be the top four. I’m literally thinking of something I could add do it, and I can’t. Well done!
XO,
Doux Rousse
http://www.douxrousse.com
I must try this! It looks well, divine.
HOLY MOLEY. This is the greatest moment in all of history.
You had me at Pinot Noir Butter….
I DO buy those Hickory Farms beef sticks for my guy’s stocking…. I know it’s wrong, but it makes him so happy.
Not wrong at all. I’m definitely doing it now.
Pinot noir butter ON filet would probably be the most amazing flavor combination known to man. Mmm, wine.
Cologne is on my shopping list for Lee too. I just can’t ever decide and they eventually all start to smell the same to me!
I love the wine butter, this is so COOL! I’m sooo making one of these to bring to my mom’s!
That’s the prettiest butter I’ve ever seen!
How much do I love you? SO much!!! And not even for this recipe, but for your amazing storytelling + enthusiasm. It’s like reading a chapter in a book you’ve written every single morning and I want more! Honestly, I am not a blue cheese fan, but we LOVE some pinot noir around here! Now you know who is a blue cheese fan? My dad…obviously….so I will be sending him this! Wine buttterrrrrrr??? YUM. Also, I always think “COL-OG-NEE” in my head and that actually made me L-O-L. XO
Wow..these biscuits look like scones..would love to gobble a plateful of these every morning!
Perfume and Cologne are the hardest gifts to buy for people. Seriously I’ve been wearing the same perfume forever, why? Cause it’s too freakin hard to figure out what smells good espcially after trying multiple scents and which one says “this is totally me take a bug wiff”. Now if only they could bottle up the scent of right out of the oven chocolate chip cookies.
You know what would go wonderfully with that biscuit and egg? Country ham. When I was 13, my grandparents asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said “country ham.” Eager to oblige, they got me a huge supply from a gourmet meat market. The rest of the family agreed it was one of the best gifts ever.
So don’t knock the beef stick idea. :-D
I think I’m in love with you and your grandparents.
oh.my.god. that’s all i got….other than yes I will make these soon….for a party to be all fancypantsish.
Thats all my husband is allowed to wear, too!!
These look amazing. Would be so good with fruit and cheese plate.
Pinot.noir.butter. Wine.butter. Is this real? Am I in heaven? Who else is here? ;)
Pretty sure you’re the best person ever.
are you serious?! wine butter?! sold. that looks AMAZING. I’ve had wine mixed into cheese before now that I think about it. But butter > cheese so wine butter > wine cheese. Gosh I love the way your mind works!
Ugh being in the perfume/cologne (and yes I say CO-LOG-NEE too) sections always give me a headache just from being overwhelmed by scents. Even if I don’t test any I have to dash through there fast to not feel like I am choking.
As for these biscuits? Heaven. And that butter? Stunning. I need to make bread things more often…
Wow! That’s all I got. Wow!