Jalapeno Biscuits with Ancho-Cinnamon Butter

I LOVE breads of all kinds.  It doesn’t matter what kind of bread either.  As long as there is enough butter to go with all the bread, I could easily live on bread and butter alone and be quite happy and content.  I try to make our meals as complete as possible with protein, vegetables, carbs, and starches, and there is almost always some kind of bread to go with the meal as well.  I know, there are many that think bread, gluten and carbs are the roots of all evil, but I assure you, I am not one of them.

When I made my Cuban shrimp stew Cuban Shrimp Stew  I needed something else to go with it.  I looked through all my Latin cookbooks until I found just what I was looking for.  The recipe I found actually called for nopales or cactus strips, which I thought I had, but did not.  I did have jalapenos though, so I substituted the nopales for the jalapenos, and the biscuits still came out great.  I always have jalapenos on hand.  We eat them quite often.  I looked for the nopales after, because I would still like to make those as well, but I have been having a hard time finding them lately.  Usually you can find them at any place where they sell Latin foods.  I will just have to keep searching for them, and I will make the nopales biscuits again when I do find them.

 

Jalapeno Biscuits

This recipe is simple and only calls for a few basic ingredients, other than the nopales, which I did not use this time.

1 cup light or white cheese – jack, pepper, jack, or mozzarella are all fine.  If using something other than pepper jack cheese, add some red pepper flakes as well.  If you like it spicy, you can still add red pepper flakes even if you are using pepper jack cheese.

2 tsp red pepper flakes or to taste

3 TBSP fresh cilantro, chopped fine

1 large jalapeno, diced fine

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter at room temperature, cubed in small cubes

 

Preheat the oven to 400* F or 200* C

 

Mix all the dry ingredients and the cheese together.  Then add the jalapeno and the butter and mix with a fork or a pastry cutter until the dough forms into a sticky ball.

You can either use a spoon and drop the dough in about 1 TBSP portions, or you can roll out the dough to about 1-1 1/2 ” high and cut with a cookie cutter.  This time I used the cookie cutter to make them more uniform.  Place them on an ungreased baking sheet about 2″ apart and bake for about 40 minutes, or until they are lightly browned and slightly crisp on the bottom.  Mine came out with a slight greenish tint before baking because, silly me, I put everything in the food processor instead of mixing everything together with either a fork or a pastry cutter.  Once they baked up, however, the greenish tint faded.  They still came out tasting really good, regardless of their greenish tint though.

 

Ancho-Cinnamon Butter

1 tsp minced ancho peppers

2 TBSP orange juice

1 1/2 cups butter at room temperature

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin

2 1/2 tsp honey

 

Mix everything together in a food processor until well blended.

You can use this sweet and spicy butter for anything to add a little more zest and pizzazz to the dish.

Serve the biscuits hot or warm so the ancho-cinnamon butter melts into the biscuits.   Believe me, with every bite, your taste buds will be begging for more.