Buttermilk Biscuit Muffins with Ginger Plum Jam and my final day in Ohio Amish Country at Murphin Ridge Inn

A good buttermilk biscuit is a thing of beauty, light, flaky and buttery. Add a spoonful of homemade ginger plum jam and you’ve got a country breakfast on a plate. Of course, some people seem super scared of making biscuits, thinking they’ll make them hard, tough or misshapen. Thankfully there is an easy solutions to this dilemma – make biscuit muffins! The buttermilk biscuit muffin with ginger plum jam that you see above looks WAY fancier than it actually is, as they are crazy easy to make. The biscuit muffin is a little bit of genius inspired by a recipe from the Murphin Ridge Inn Cookbook, which I picked up when I was in Ohio Amish country last Spring, along with a number of other food bloggers. I had a chance to write about the other two inns I visited on that trip, the Inn at Honey Run and the Inn at Cedar Falls but somehow I never got to writing about the Murphin Ridge Inn, which is sad as it was probably my favorite one in the bunch.(Jump directly to the recipe.)

While in Ohio Amish Country, before we headed to the Murphin Ridge Inn, we stopped to learn a bit about maple syrup. The tour of the maple trees of Ohio, along with the history of maple syrup and how it was discovered was fascinating. Most maple syrup is made from sugar maple trees (though other maple tress like red maple or black maple can also be used. The tree stores starches in their trunk and roots, and convert it to sugar, that is rise in the tree in the Spring. Tapping the tree allows the sap to be collected, which is needs to be boiled down to create maple syrup. Somewhere between 20 to 50 liters of sap is needed to boil down to make just 1 liter of maple syrup!

After the maple syrup tour, we did a quick hike around Ohio country, in Hocking Hills State Park, to Old Man’s Cave. The hike in the brisk country air was bracing (in a good way) and I stopped often to marvel at the rock formations and picturesque pools and waterfalls that we would come across. I never would have guessed that Ohio had great places to hike (and apparently there’s great rock climbing and rappelling as well around there).

Of course, when we finally got to Murphin Ridge Inn, owners Sherry and Darryl made us feel incredibly warm and welcome after a day of hiking in the country. Their simple lunch of soup and salad (with a signature Murphin Ridge biscuit) was exactly what we all needed after running around outside.

We didn’t have much time to hang out at Murphin Ridge Inn, as we soon found ourselves whisked off after lunch to a working Amish farm, where we learned a little bit about how the Amish milk their cows (they used gas generators to power their equipment!) and even a sneak peak into their kitchen, which was the heart of their home for the family of ten. The family was incredibly welcoming to us, offering us homemade mozzarella, bread and a sweet rolled bread that was just out of the oven.

Driving around the country, I was insistent that we stop at an antique shop and the one we ended up stopping at (there were tons) was outrageous. From the dozen or so peacocks strutting around the grounds, to the two large warehouses full of treasures and random knick knacks. Ohio Amish country had some incredible treasures, all waiting to be discovered. If only I had space for some of the finds there!

Back at Murphin Ridge Inn, the food writers and bloggers all gathered up for dinner, which was a fantastic five-course meal which included a scrambled egg custard with crunchy fried pork jowl, celery root and pear soup with spiced granola, rosemary carpaccio with arugula and slow braised chicken with spring vegetables all made from farm-fresh food. Chef Brad impressed all of us jaded food bloggers with his cuisine, while the servers entertained us to no end. Even though I’m used to eating “localvore” style in San Francisco, there’s something super awesome when your server owns the cow that the cream came from in your dinner. Now that’s local!

Once dinner was over, we gathered outside, grabbed some logs from the pile of wood, and huddled around the fire pit, talking about how awesome our trip had been before retiring to our comfy cozy rooms. Every inn we visited, all the food, all the people made us realize how vibrant the Ohio Amish Country is. None of us wanted to say goodbye.

We woke up early for breakfast, coming down in our robes, to eat one last meal together and to get one last picture together. Saying goodbye was hard, both to each other, to Murphin Ridge Inn, and to Ohio Amish country. I can only hope that some day I’ll have the chance to come back and visit.

We'll always have Ohio

Special thanks goes to The Inn at Honey Run, The Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls and Murphin Ridge Inn for hosting me for this trip to Ohio Amish Country. All travel, accommodations, meals and tours were provided by the hosts. That said, I was not compensated otherwise for what I wrote above and everything I have written is my own opinion.