why did my biscuits turn into little cakes?

[fourlittlefeet]

same recipe, the first time I made them they didn't spread out so looked like lumpy little hills, but were nice and crunchy.

the second time I added more milk as I thought a looser texture might spread them out. I was right, they spread out but also never went hard and crispy, though just as brown. I suspect the first time I might have forgotton the bicarb too.

any thoughts?

Did you use plain flour or self raising?

what was in them?

Oven temperature perhaps, possibly too low. Though by the sounds of it, the mixture was too wet, due to you adding the milk.

I made biscuits with the children I was babysitting on Saturday evening. We used 4oz Butter, 4oz Sugar, 8oz Plain Flour and 1 Egg. This very basic biscuit mixture can be cut into shapes by children. It would have worked without the Egg but is best put in a tin, rather than cut into shapes. The egg seems to me to help hold it together and stop it spreading out too much.

What recipe were you using?

Sounds as if you used self raising flour by mistake. I've got a brilliant cut-out biscuit recipe if you need it. (well, it's Nigella's actually, but it's still brilliant!)

it was plain flour, sugar, bicarb, butter, egg, milk, choc chips and apricots. bake 180 for 8 to 12 mins. temps same both times and I measured the ingredients!

yes please on biscuit recipe! i had a coffee morning and the baby was asleep so couldn't go to the shop as planned. good cook and bread baker. shit at cakes and biscuits due to no practice!

i was confused as the first batch were biscuity but weird looking, the second looked perfect but stayed like small cakes. it was a chunky monkey recipe. really wanted to make american chop chip type cookies but obviously failed miserably! tasted nice though.

Oh what a sweet thread title! I thought it was going to be a lament that your babies have grown into toddlers!!

sorry am obv not quite with it...

Flighty I could lament with you on that one too. what a lovely poetic way to read it especially as DD has just weaned herself !

It's a miracle!

My Rich Teas have not been similarly blessed

Aw! am weaning too atm.

Lol Nobiggy!

Btw I cannot cook so unable to help with actual problem

I've got another little biscuit in the oven so will be BF'ing again in four months. Maybe there is a true link and thats where the need to learn to bake has come from. Or I'm just hungry and pregnant and want nice biscuits without walking to the shop

Congratulations! How lovely

thank you! good luck with the weaning Nobiggy.

I'll tell you the secret to crisp, flat biscuits:

LARD

half lard half marge

but does that mean that your biscuits, if not hard and crunchy, were soft a chewy???

if so, then sorry but I feel very at your skill to make the best biscuits in the world!!!

I use Mrs Badgers recipe - they're lovely

Bicarb reacts quickly so air bubbles would form fast once in the oven. The egg I would have thought would then help keep the biscuits expanded.
I'm pondering over the milk... your recipe had butter in it and egg, so I am wondering what purpose the milk had... other than to make the mixture more runny (which I don't think you want for biscuits, but do for cakes).

Perhaps try the recipe again, but skip the milk and see what happens. Experiment a bit, never know you may come up with a new recipe for lovely biscuits which are hard on the outside but soft and chewy in the middle.

Or just try a different recipe. I like the one's with very few ingredients - as seems to me that there is less to go wrong!

Easy Emergency Biscuits (Mrs Badger)
Jammy Biscuits (Anon)

not enough flour?

I'm going to go through methodically. basically when I added more milk in the hope they would spread out, they turned into little cakes, literally. not soft and chewy (which is secretly what I, too, was after). They were like small jaffa cakes. nice, but not soft, chewy american cookies . when I did it without as much milk they didn't spread out but stayed in little rocky mountains. crunchy biscuits, but looked pretty weird!