Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

Some months I make all of the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes for the month within a week of when they're announced, giving me the luxury of time to write my posts, comment on my friends blogs and generally enjoy the process.

These days, not so much. I've been working a ton (lots of 8 and 9 PM nights) and generally feeling like I'm living one of those nightmares where you run faster and faster but seemingly run in place, unable to escape the monster. It's not even my "busy" time of year yet, that time when we're closing the books for the year and getting ready for the audit, and getting through the audit, and the year-end reporting, yadda yadda.

When things are a pressure cooker get busy at work, I bake. My coworkers call it stress baking and while they are simpatico about my palpable stress, they've started tremulously asking the question "So, you're working a ton. When does the stress baking start?" For while they wouldn't wish my year-end (that's June 30th for us) workload on anyone, they don't mind that I blow off steam by getting out the flour, butter, sugar, eggs and frequently chocolate.

Let me say I am extraordinarily lucky to work with a great group of people who whole-heartedly embrace my baking. I never hear complaints. In my last job, I was confronted in the elevator by a woman who found baked goods irresistible and really wanted me to stop. So I appreciate having an audience who eats it all, without complaint, and gives me good feedback to boot.

So when the stress baking question started surfacing, I resolved to bake more (hard to do when you're getting home at 9:30 and going back to work at 8-ish). Fortunately, the May TWD recipes had been announced and they were almost all easy, portable and suitable for breakfast.

I'm dubious about recipes that call for cornmeal if it's a departure from the norm, so I was a little wary about this one. In my pre-coffee stupor, I messed up measuring the wet ingredients and added too much maple syrup. My batter was much wetter than normal, but I went with it. It turned out just fine as the biscuits were moist, tender, flakey and delicious. I made a little maple butter to serve with them and that made the butter lovers happy.

I can't say how these keep since they disappeared in the blink of an eye. Like any biscuit, I think they should be consumed while still warm from the oven, and they taste extra yummy when shared with people you love.

Lindsay from A Little Something...Sweet is our host this week. I can't thank Lindsay enough for picking something easy and delicious to get this year's stress baking off on the right foot. If you're looking for a foolproof spin on the classic biscuit, Lindsay will have the recipe for you here.