You can make and bake these simple sourdough biscuits in about 20 minutes. The biscuits come out of the air fryer or oven fragrant with the flavors of basil and Parmesan cheese. Crispy on the outside, the biscuits are moist inside. You can eat the warm biscuits "as is," or use them to sandwich slices of tomato and mozzarella cheese. You'll have a "caprese" biscuit! You can use homemade pesto to make the biscuits or ready-made pesto from the store. Either will work, but you may have a slight difference in texture in the biscuit, depending on the amounts of oil/basil/cheese in the various pestos. I usually use a little white whole-wheat flour in the biscuits, but if you want a lighter biscuit, go with all-purpose flour only. These are incredibly easy biscuits to make--no need to cut in butter or cut out the biscuits! Enjoy!
Sourdough Pesto Biscuits -- Makes About 9
1 cup of sourdough starter/discard
1 cup of pesto
1/2 cup of white whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of milk (optional)
Cut small pieces of baking parchment to fit your air fryer basket or, if you're going to bake the biscuits in the regular oven, line a baking sheet with parchment. Combine the starter/discard and pesto in a large bowl and mix them well. Add to the bowl the flours, baking powder, and salt and then stir them together a little. With a sturdy spoon, mix the dry ingredients into the sourdough/pesto mixture until everything is just combined and comes together into a dough. If the mixture seems too dry, add a little milk. Scoop up small bits of dough--a little less than 1/4 cup--and drop them on the baking parchment, spacing the dough mounds about 2 inches apart (you probably can get 2-3 mounds on each piece of parchment for the air fryer, but don't crowd the dough). You can moisten your hands with a little water to shape the dough into rough rounds, if you'd like. Put one dough-topped piece of parchment in your air fryer basket, put the basket in the air fryer, and air fry the dough at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until the biscuits are light brown and just firm to the touch. Remove the biscuits from the air fryer to cool and repeat the cooking process with the remaining dough. If you're baking the dough in the regular oven, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake the biscuits for 15-20 minutes or until light brown and just firm to the touch.
