Sometimes cooking is an exercise in problem solving.

In case you hadn’t guessed by the bizarre name of this blog post, these biscuits were nothing more than an accidental experiment.

If you cook and bake enough (actually, even if you don’t I feel as though the mistake that follows is a pretty easy one to make), you are bound to mix-up ingredients once in awhile. Be it baking soda with powder, salt with sugar, they’re switch-ups you hopefully notice during the cooking process rather than the eating one. The mix-up this time around? Flour and icing sugar. Rookie Mistake (one that has happened before, in fact, almost a year ago to this day).

Here’s how it happened: Jen and I were in the midst of whipping up what seemed to be a pound of buttercream icing to use during our cake painting party. Having just moved into her and Ian’s house, I’m still familiarizing myself with where the baking ingredients are. When searching for icing sugar, Jen directed me to the smallest of baking canisters. Inside was the white powder, the likes of which I could only assume would become something sugary and delicious in a couple minutes time. So I started mixing, pouring powdery clouds of “icing sugar” into my mixing bowl, blending it with the butter and whipping cream my basic buttercream icing recipe requires. It wasn’t until Jen decided to sample the icing that I knew something was wrong (though I should have suspected something was up when the icing began to look more clumpy than smooth). I asked her if the icing was okay. She gave me a strange “I don’t know how to tell you this” look in return. The pigments in my skin got ready to paint my face a shade of “I’m sorry, I can’t really bake” red. Then, Jen said it: “so, I think that was flour, not icing sugar.”

And indeed it was. A cup of butter, about four cups of flour, and half a cup of whipping cream. All blended together to form the most rich of substances.

Now, we’re not ones to waste.

Jen tossed in a couple teaspoons of baking powder, and we were set. Buttercream icing biscuits it is.

These came out of the oven smelling like heaven and heart attacks. They were like shortbread cookies without the sugar – flakey, buttery treats that crumbled in my mouth and refused to digest without half a litre of milk.

So logically we put lots more rich breakfast food on the biscuits, and had my parents over for brunch.

Kitchen problem: solved.

Recipe: Buttercream icing biscuits
Adapted from a kitchen mishap
– 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
– 3 1/2 cup flour
– 1/2 cup whipping cream
– 3 tsp baking powder
– 1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter using a mixer. Add the flour and whipping cream alternatively, mixing with a wooden spoon or your hand mixer until combined. Add the baking powder and salt.

Roll the dough into a ball, adding more flour, if necessary. Flatten out into 1/2 inch circle, and cut out biscuits with glass. Put on a baking tray and bake at 350 degrees until golden.

Top with breakfast goodies.

Makes about 8 biscuits.

Note: this isn’t a super tested recipe…being a mistake and all.