Goodness gracious!   I pride myself on being a good cook!  I’ve told you the basic rules that my mom taught me.  Usually I do really well in the kitchen!

Usually.

I’m reading Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist as part of a reading challenge this year (but mainly because my good friend Sheila, the queen of hospitality, recommended it to me).  It’s a LOVELY book, exquisitely written, and it includes some amazing recipes.  I just HAD to try her Goat Cheese Biscuit recipe tonight.

Well.

I managed to mess up nearly every step of a VERY simple recipe!  She mentioned that the original recipe called for self rising flour, but that she ended up changing it to plain flour with baking soda and salt.  I had self rising flour, so I decided to use it.  Aaaaand then I proceeded to add soda and salt…which I didn’t need because I had used self rising flour, for crying out loud!  (Self rising flour already has rising agents in it, so you don’t have to add them.)

The one part I managed to get right was to add tiny pieces of butter.  Did that.  Yay!

THEN I added the yogurt and the parmesan cheese, and the dough was just WRONG.  Way too dry.  I added the little bit of yogurt I had left.  Still too dry.  I finally grabbed the half and half out of the fridge–muttering under my breath by this time–and added enough to make the dough all come together.

THEN it occurred to me that the parmesan wasn’t meant to be stirred in.  It was supposed to be sprinkled on top AFTER they baked.  *sigh*  So, I figured THAT was why the dough was all wrong, but it still seemed that the small amount of parmesan shouldn’t have changed it THAT much.

I went ahead and got them in the oven knowing that they would be, best case scenario, too salty, and quite possibly inedible.

 

You know what?!?  Those little biscuits were pretty tasty, especially after we followed Shauna’s advice to put some strawberry preserves on them!  Ha!  Hooray!!!

An full hour later I solved the mystery of the too-dry dough.  I had used Greek yogurt, and I’m pretty sure SHE meant me to use regular yogurt…which is much more liquidy.  (It’s a word.  Trust me.)

All this to say, read your recipe carefully.  Do your best to follow the instructions, especially when it’s your first time making it.  And sometimes, even if you do it all wrong, it even turns out okay!

 

 

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