Counting down The Times’ top recipes: Maple bacon biscuits

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We’re counting down to the New Year by counting our favorite Los Angeles Times recipes of 2008: The No. 9 spot goes to these maple bacon biscuits, adapted from the ones pastry chef Zoe Nathan makes at Rustic Canyon.

But first, a digression.

There’s a counter outside The Times’ test kitchen that’s one of the most popular spots in the building, because if you time it right, you can sample some of the goodies whipped up by test kitchen manager Noelle Carter. You can always tell when Noelle is cooking, because, coincidentally, the pathway outside the test kitchen is as busy as the 405 on a Friday afternoon.

And you can always tell when a recipe rates off the chart by the speed with which the food disappears. If only we’d set our stop watches and had a video camera at the ready when these golden little biscuits were placed counterside.

In short, people went bonkers. They scarfed them down, went back to their desks, told their neighbors.... who then came running to the test kitchen for their own sample. And were oh-so-crestfallen to find them all gone. One person -- we will not say who -- was seen dabbing at the crumbs in order to get a taste of this bacon-y, buttery goodness.

So it’s no surprise that these biscuits earned a spot on the list of some of our favorite recipes of the year, as chosen by Noelle (who tests and perfects all our recipes to make sure they’re fit to print) and the rest of the Food staff. It will all culminate in a package we’re printing on Dec. 31.

Let us know if we’ve overlooked one of your favorite recipes from 2008 -- and we’ll include it in our roundup. Click here to see where the list stands so far.

-- Rene Lynch