Turkey-Filled Biscuit Spirals

Athlyn loves "all things bread" and shares her tips and recipes for homemade bread, quick breads, and all varieties in between.

Turkey and Biscuits Are a Match Made in Heaven

If you are entertaining a crowd, you can create tasty appetizers by transforming ordinary biscuits into tasty finger food with a delicious turkey filling. It's easy to do, and you will be pleased with the results.

If you're a fan of turkey pie, these spirals offer close to the same taste but are much easier to make. Biscuits and turkey go well together and can be combined to make this delicious dish with a twist.

These may look tricky, but they are easy to make: you simply roll out your biscuit dough on a floured counter, you mix up your turkey filling, and you spread it over your dough that you then roll up (like you would when making cinnamon buns), and cut it into rounds prior to baking.

Biscuit spirals are also known as "pinwheels," but whatever you call them, adding a layer of turkey filling to your dough makes for delicious eating.

You can pretty much use any biscuit recipe to make these, but I've included my favorite recipe below.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 tbsp. vegetable shortening
• 1 cup milk

Preparing Dough

1. Mix dry ingredients, cut in lard until crumbly, add milk and stir lightly until dough forms.
2. Add more liquid, if necessary, to make a slightly moist dough. Knead gently.
3. Sprinkle flour on counter.
4. Roll out biscuit dough to a thickness of 1/4".
5. Shape into a large rectangle.

Preparing Turkey Mixture

While you can just break up flaked turkey with a fork and use that as your filling, it is recommended that you season your filling for tastier results.

In a bowl, mix together:

• 2 tins of flaked turkey (156 grams)
• Celery chopped fine (amount to preference)
• Onion chopped fine (amount to preference)
• Poultry seasoning (to taste)

Using a pastry cutter, cut turkey until finely minced. Add chopped onions and celery, then shake in poultry seasoning. Mix well and check flavor, adding more poultry seasoning until the turkey is spicy and seasoned to taste.

Adding Turkey Filling and Forming Spirals

1. Spread turkey mixture over biscuit dough, leaving 1/2" around the edges. A spatula serves well for this purpose.
2. Starting on the wide side of the rectangle, roll up the dough jelly-roll style until a rectangular log is formed.
3. To seal, moisten edges with water and pinch together until a seam forms.

Cutting into Spirals

1. Place log seam-side down on a cutting board and slice into 1/2" wide sections.
2. Place biscuit spirals on a lightly buttered cookie sheet.
3. Bake at 325° reducing oven temperature to 300° towards the end of cooking time. Bake until biscuit rounds are golden brown.

Tips for Making Perfect Spirals

• Moist: Make sure the biscuit dough is slightly moist so that when spirals cook, the biscuit crust is not dry and crumbly.
• Rolled Tightly: When rolling up biscuit dough, ensure that the log is rolled tightly to prevent the filling mixture from spilling out due to gaps (between the filling and biscuit dough) inside the spiral.
• Double-pan: Adding an extra pan ensures that the bottoms of spirals do not over-brown.
• Oven Rack: Position the oven rack higher up in the oven to prevent bottoms from over-browning

Cook Time

Serving Suggestions

• Biscuit spirals can be served cold and as is.
• If desired, serve either cold or warm with butter.
• Serve warm and top with turkey gravy.

A Good Make-Ahead Party Food

Because these make such great appetizers, you may choose to make them ahead of time and freeze them. This is doable, and they taste every bit as good. You may opt to warm them slightly before serving.

Delicious at Any Time

Whether you serve these as party food or you serve along with a homemade soup, or you pack them into lunches, you will love the unbeatable taste of turkey-filled biscuit spirals.

© 2013 Athlyn Green