Grandmother’s Sweet Biscuits

(Recipe follows in comment section)

We visited my folks this weekend and I made Sweet Biscuits with my dad. They’re a simple sweet white roll topped with sugar from his mother’s recipe. We both love them and have decided, though they are delicious in and of themselves, we love them so much more because of their tradition. My grandmother was of Swedish descent and used to make them on holidays. Her recipe was vague and it took a few tries for the next generations to get it down. In fact, my aunt, my uncle and my cousin all have slight variations. Some still use shortening (though the original recipe called for “spry”) and some use butter. Some top the roll with plain sugar. My dad prefers to add some cinnamon, my aunt goes for cardamom in true Scandinavian fashion. My dad has tried over the years to make them but he’s a dough novice and suffers beginner’s fear of yeast. (Oh, how I remember those days.) He’s also a very logical guy and doesn’t appreciate the vague measurements of flour and ambiguous descriptions of how dough should look and feel. We even got him a Kitchen Aid mixer last Christmas, hoping it would help with kneading. (I think this past weekend was the first time it was used actually.)

Anyway, I got to show him first hand some how-to’s of bread making and the result was a light, fluffy, sweet delight to eat warm slathered with butter. Yum.