Baking Powder Biscuits

Before I post any further successful ventures from my kitchen I had to share my first major FLOP since starting my blog.

Yesterday afternoon I fixed this amazing Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup (post to follow soon). I was pondering what I could serve alongside my soup that would support the flavors of the soup but not detract from it. "Maybe an herbed biscuit", I thought to myself. I haven't tried to make biscuits from scratch for awhile and I'm determined to master this "skill". I went to my trusty Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook to find a simple biscuit recipe and found one for baking powder biscuits. Sounds simple enough, right???

Step 1-cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender. "Check" - my bowl of dough looks just like the picture of Martha's.

Step 2-pour cream into flour mixture and fold in with a spatula. "Check"-again, my dough looks like Martha's...Yay!!

Step 3-plop onto a lightly floured surface, pat into a circle and cut out biscuits. "Check"...this is fantastic,I can't wait to taste these yummy biscuits that I made with my own hands.

Bake...blah, blah, blah. They smelled so good while they baked. My taste-buds were waiting to savor these herbed biscuits with my soup. Oh biscuits, please hurry and finish baking!!

I reach into the oven to pull out my culinary success and...........they didn't look like Martha's biscuits at all!!! Mine were 3 inch diameter FLAT, hockey-like disks while hers looked all browned, puffy and perfect!! CRAP!!! Where did I go wrong???? Mine were still flaky like a biscuit and didn't taste ALL that bad....Marty still ate 3 of them, actually he drowned them in his soup...but I'm very disappointed. Was my baking powder too old? Did I work the dough too much? HELP!!!

So, all you perfect bakers out there, please help me out. Any pointers you can offer will be greatly appreciated by my family. Otherwise I'm contacting our local boys' hockey team and supplying them with brownish colored, very flat, 3-inch diameter disks to practice with. And to all of you who were waiting for me to post my first failure, you've got it, baking powder disks.

Here's to posting more successfull, fun, flavorful recipes and enjoying our culinary adventure together!!!!