Baking Powder Biscuits with Herbs

As a good student of cooking classes, I prepared my mise en place, took a deep breath and began. I properly measured, just as Martha insists, used the appropriate equipment and felt that nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?

Wrong, My Nemesis is dough. Any kind of dough. I followed the directions exactly as written, I looked at the picture for reference and yet...still....my dough was too dry and crumbly. Being mindful of the warning:"Do not overwork", I tried my best to be gentle and coax the dough into submission. Like my dog and/or my teenage daughter, the dough was having none of that and insisted that I use it "as is". Okay.

I took my 2 1/4" biscuit cutter and cored away. Hey, not too bad. It actually did stay together in their disc shape so I cut out the other eleven and put them on my brand new baking sheet. In they went into my preheated oven and the timer was set for half time in order to turn the around in the oven.

I went back to the counter to clean up and noticed that there was a great deal of dough left over. Enough for another batch. Hmmm, did I double the recipe without realizing it? Shrugging off my doubt I waited for the timer to ring and to get my first glimpse of these delectable little treats. When half time came, I turned them and they still looked kind of raw? No, that's fine, they will be flaky and golden once the full baking time is up.

Once again the timer rings and walk over to the oven eagerly anticipating my first successful biscuit batch. Oh dear, not done, not flaky, not golden....Did I mention that one thing besides a popover pan I did not buy that Martha suggests is an oven thermometer? I now suspect that my oven is developmentally delayed (the term slow is so old school). So I keep them in the oven set my timer to 3 minute intervals and watch and wait.....Soon I lose count of how many more times I Set that thing but finally, FINALLY they are looking (almost) as described.

They smell delicious and I take them out to cool on the wire rack that Martha suggests. I go back to the book to compare them with Martha's and notice that they are about half the height of hers. Ahhh, maybe that is why I had so much dough left.

They are a hit with Chin who slathers margarine on them and scarfs them up. I have 1/2 of one, without the margarine because I know how much butter went into the recipe and am impressed with myself. Maybe this forage into the world of baking won't be so hard....