Bunny Biscuits — The Eighty-Percent Gift That Was Everything

My birthday. Fifty-two. The world is locked down and the construction sites are closed and I'm standing in my kitchen at six AM making soup beans because it's Monday and because the pandemic doesn't get to cancel Monday. The virus cancels concerts and restaurants and visits to Betty and handshakes and every other form of human contact, but it does not cancel soup beans. Soup beans predate the virus. Soup beans will postdate the virus. Soup beans are sovereign territory and the virus is not welcome.

Connie made meatloaf for my birthday. The tradition. The one meal a year. She also gave me a card that said "Happy Birthday to a man who has survived mines, deployments, pandemics, and my cooking." She's funny. She's always been funny. The humor is the rebar in the concrete of our marriage — invisible, structural, essential. Without Connie's humor, the marriage would have crumbled under the weight of everything the last four years have thrown at it. But the rebar holds. The jokes hold. Meatloaf on my birthday holds.

Clay made me a biscuit. One biscuit. Handmade, on his own, without supervision, as a birthday present. He brought it to me on a plate at seven AM and said "Happy birthday, Dad. Eighty percent." I ate it. It was eighty percent. Maybe eighty-two. He's improving. The biscuit was his gift, the way the recipe cards were mine: food as love letter, food as message, food as the thing you give when the word "love" is too heavy to lift and a biscuit is just the right weight.

Betty called. She's fine. Alone, isolated, cooking for one, but fine. She sang happy birthday. Off-key. Added a verse: "Happy birthday dear Craig, stay inside and wash your hands." Medical advice as melody, year two. She asked about Clay. I said he's home, he's cooking, he's going to his group (virtual now, via phone, which Clay hates because talking to a phone is not the same as talking to men who understand, but he does it because the alternative is not talking and not talking is what put him on the garage floor in December).

Amber is working. Working through the pandemic, in the hospital, on the front lines. I don't call her "frontline worker" because the military metaphor sits wrong when my son actually was on a frontline and the two frontlines are not the same, but the risk is real and the danger is real and my daughter puts on PPE every shift the way Earl put on a hard hat every morning and goes into a place where the threat is invisible and the only protection is protocol and training and the stubborn refusal to stop helping people who are dying. I'm terrified for her. I'm terrified for Clay. I'm terrified for Betty. I'm terrified for Connie. I'm terrified for everyone I love and the only thing I can do about it is make soup beans and wash my hands and stay inside and let the birthday pass and trust that fifty-two is not the number where it stops.

Clay’s birthday biscuit is going to stay with me longer than any gift I’ve ever received — not because it was eighty percent, but because he made it alone, on purpose, as a message, and delivered it on a plate at seven in the morning like it was something. If you’re going to work toward a biscuit worth giving, this is the one to practice: simple enough that a determined person can take it on solo, forgiving enough that eighty percent still tastes like love, and good enough that you’ll keep making them until you get to eighty-two, then eighty-five, then something that doesn’t need a number at all.

Bunny Biscuits

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 12 biscuits

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 3/4 cup cold whole milk
• 24 small raisins or mini chocolate chips (for eyes, optional)
• 12 sliced almonds (for teeth, optional)
• 1 tablespoon melted butter (for brushing)

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until evenly combined.
3. Cut in butter. Add cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter or your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized pieces remaining. Work quickly so the butter stays cold.
4. Add milk. Pour in cold milk all at once. Stir with a fork until the dough just comes together — do not overmix. The dough will look shaggy and that’s exactly right.
5. Turn and fold. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gently pat and fold it over itself 4 or 5 times until it holds together. Pat to about 3/4-inch thickness.
6. Cut biscuit bodies. Use a 2-inch round cutter to cut out 12 circles. Re-roll scraps once if needed. Place rounds on the prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart.
7. Shape the ears. From remaining dough scraps, pinch off small pieces and roll into 24 small ovals about 1 inch long. Press two ears onto the top edge of each biscuit round, angling them slightly outward.
8. Add faces. If using, gently press 2 raisin or chocolate chip eyes onto each biscuit and tuck an almond sliver below them for a little snout. Press lightly so they hold during baking.
9. Bake. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the tops are just beginning to turn golden and the edges look set. Do not overbake — a pale golden biscuit is a tender biscuit.
10. Brush and serve. Remove from oven and immediately brush tops with melted butter. Serve warm. They are best the day they’re made, but they reheat well wrapped in foil for 5 minutes in a 350°F oven.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 198mg