One of the most creative people I know, my younger daughter Abby, is having a birthday tomorrow. (She’s quite a bit older now than the picture to the left that was taken on her sixth birthday.)

Along with other nudges back in 2010 (see my initial post of explanation here), Abby urged me to take up blogging. She’d been blogging for a year at that point, and has now returned to the distraction of blogging (at least for now). I say distraction because with three very busy young children, other things beside blogging understandably top her priority list.

Abby’s most recent blog post entitled Manna From Down South is worthy of mention here. The post just prior to Manna is titled I Am A Crap Photographer. In my view, she’s being entirely too modest and self-critical, for when my eyes beheld the photo at the top of the Manna post, my taste buds responded as one would expect when food is set directly in front of you! I yearned for immediate gratification! Look at the picture for yourself and see if you agree. Don’t those biscuits look tempting?!

To borrow and rework a phrase from well-known Peanuts author Charles Schulz, Happiness is a Warm Biscuit!

My daughter is a woman who seeks culinary excellence and has the persistence to stick to a goal until she’s satisfied she’s created a winner. The bonus in her post is you’ll actually be able to enjoy creating this delight yourself, based on the free recipe she’s sharing!

If you read through the Manna post, you’ll notice an oblique reference to me … yep, I’m the one who served her (and her siblings in their growing-up years) “… canned or baking-mix biscuits.” I had no idea the suffering I caused my offspring to endure! (<— sarc)

I am being slightly sarcastic, yes, but may I say a word in my defense? I did, I admit, pull canned biscuits from the fridge on many an occasion. I also used my share of Bisquick, Pioneer, Martha White and just about any other biscuit/baking mix I could put my hands on. Yes, to my shame, I served these inferior products to my little ones … and they ate the baked goods I produced, happily and hungrily!

All the while though, I was looking, looking, looking! Every issue of Southern Living, I’d search cover-to-cover for just one treasured, sure-fire biscuit recipe. Oh, there were numerous recipes in the magazine, every month, even some biscuit recipes which I dutifully clipped out and gave them a try … always coming up short.

I knew it, too, sometimes even before I’d given the recipe a go. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember being told (as a child?) that any biscuit recipe requiring more than 5 ingredients will be a waste of time. I can’t tell you who gave me that warning, but most of the recipes I tried through the years included way more than 5 ingredients. (Maybe my efforts were doomed from the start.)

Also in my defense, what cooking I learned in my early years came from my German grandmother by way of my eastern-born mother. Breads, yes, both quick and yeast breads, coarse breads (like rye and whole-grain or pretzels) were familiar, but biscuits didn’t show up on that list. In fact, biscuits and gravy were one of my dad’s least favorite dishes; he was generally a ham-and-eggs guy at breakfast and meat-and-potatoes guy for other meals.

So what chance did I have really?!

All told, I must have spent ten or fifteen years looking for a recipe − THE RECIPE − for those perfect flaky, mouth-watering southern biscuits! Perhaps if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have just bided my time, waiting for the day when Abby would offer this scrumptious Manna on her blog for all to enjoy!

Thanks for the recipe, Abby … and Happy Birthday! We sure do love you (and we have high appreciation for your culinary talents)!