My biscuits have spots

[baytonemus]

I've enjoyed cooking for a long time but am quite new to baking. I've had great success with this biscuit recipe:
--
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.
--

They're big, flakey, and delicious. However, they are also covered in tiny, somewhat darker spots. It doesn't really hurt anything but I'm wondering why it's happening. Is it the way I'm mixing them? Maybe one or more of my ingredients are a little old? Any thughts appreciated.

Thanks - JAY

[Lisbet]

Heavy biscuits or scones -- Make sure you aren't cutting the fat into the dry mixture beyond the coarse crumb stage.
When adding liquid, stir just until moistened. Do not overmix.
A dry, tough crumb -- Handle dough more gently. Use your fingers to gently knead dough for the number of strokes indicated in the recipe.

>>Yellow specks on the top crust -- Be sure you are stirring the dry ingredients well enough to distribute the baking soda or baking powder.<<

A hard crust -- Check your oven temperature with an oven thermometer. Also check for doneness at the minimum baking time. They are done when both the top and bottom crusts are an even golden brown.

[Anneke]

...Your title sounds like a medical joke....

[baytonemus]

Thanks for your response!

Originally Posted by Lisbet

Heavy biscuits or scones -- Make sure you aren't cutting the fat into the dry mixture beyond the coarse crumb stage.

How big is a "coarse" crumb?

>>Yellow specks on the top crust -- Be sure you are stirring the dry ingredients well enough to distribute the baking soda or baking powder.<<

How long should this take and should I be using something other than a spoon, (i.e., a mixer or food processor)?

Thanks - JAY

[baytonemus]

Originally Posted by Anneke

...Your title sounds like a medical joke....

...and I'll thank you not to make personally denigrating comments about my biscuits. They're in better shape than a lot of guys my age...

[tessa]

it should have a sandy texture before adding the liquid
and i think its always best to do it by hand rather than in a machine as you can really get the feel of the mix and its less hard to seriously over mix it could be that the mix was over mixed which caused the dark spots, the gluten in the flour may have been overworked

[baytonemus]

Originally Posted by tessa

it should have a sandy texture before adding the liquid
and i think its always best to do it by hand rather than in a machine as you can really get the feel of the mix and its less hard to seriously over mix it could be that the mix was over mixed which caused the dark spots, the gluten in the flour may have been overworked

I did mix it by hand and I stopped when I could no longer feel chunks of shortening or butter. At that point I could form a thin "wafer" by pinching the mixture between my thumb and finger. Maybe I overdid it.

I realize you're in New Zealand, but would it be too much trouble to stop by my house in Minnesota and show me how to do it properly? Think it over...

Thanks - JAY

[tessa]

Originally Posted by baytonemus

I did mix it by hand and I stopped when I could no longer feel chunks of shortening or butter. At that point I could form a thin "wafer" by pinching the mixture between my thumb and finger. Maybe I overdid it.

I realize you're in New Zealand, but would it be too much trouble to stop by my house in Minnesota and show me how to do it properly? Think it over...

Thanks - JAY

you provide the airfare and i will be there

[baytonemus]

Change of plans. Income taxes are due today in the U.S. and I just sent all of my money off to the federal government. Otherwise, I definitely would have.

JAY

[tessa]

Originally Posted by baytonemus

Change of plans. Income taxes are due today in the U.S. and I just sent all of my money off to the federal government. Otherwise, I definitely would have.

JAY

darn tax department

[Lisbet]

"baytonemus"......., before adding shortening and liquid, I sift all the dry ingredients 2 and 3 times to make sure everything is well distributed. The coarse crumble is something that you learn to judge from experience. The fat particles should just become coated with the dry ingredients....not melted by warm fingers, which would reduce your mix to a ball of conglomerated paste. Everything needs to be really COLD, and work quickly, especially if you must use your hands. Refrigerate for a time before rolling or pressing out the dough and cutting the biscuits. Those small particles of coated fat explode and create the flakiness while baking in the oven.

"Anywhoo", If they taste good and are fairly tender and flakey.....who cares about a perfect appearance????
Just keep trying until they come out to your liking.....Thats how I developed my ability for bread making.
Don't give up...continue trying...and all will come out to perfection !!!

[baytonemus]

Yes, I'm hip to keeping things cold. Seems like there's a difference of opinion about using your hands and I can see where that would unavoidably warm things up a bit. They really did puff up and were quite flaky so I can't be too far off the mark in that regard.

Thanks again - JAY

[boar_d_laze]

Jay,

Hate to be a killjoy and all, but to return to the serious subject of biscuits with spots ...

Wish I had a picture. All biscuits don't brown evenly which is a function of ovens, ingredient function, and ingredient proportions, the way the biscuits are mixed, and the way they're prepped in the pan.

You temperature which is probably about as hot as your oven can go seems to take the oven itself out of it.

Your baking soda may not be fresh, it's dated on the bottom of the can. If you've got less than 6 months, or it's coming out of the can lumpy instead of as fine, dry particles, replace it with a good brand of double acting like Calumet or Clabber Girl.

A couple of your recipe's proportions are on the extreme end of what's "normal" for biscuits. Most buttermilk biscuit recipes use 1 to 1-1/3 tsp of baking powder per cup of flour, and around 1/4 cup of shortening per cup of flour. The baking powder ratio is more important to the outcome. At a certain point, additional baking powder doesn't help in the outcome and leaves an off taste which some people are more sensitive to than others. You should change your baking powder measure to 1 tbs (3 tsp) at most.

The parsimonious amounts of butter and shortening in your recipe gives your biscuits more fluffy-bread than flaky-biscuit texture. Your biscuit recipe is emphatically not "heavy" or "rich." In fact, although you do use butter, it's unusually lean; and, the relative lack of fat may be your causing your spottiness problem, because it makes it difficult to see if you've properly incorporated the fat into the flour.

You hear the "coarse meal" texture mentioned frequently. It's a decent indicator. I'd prefer to see it a trifle uneven, with nothing finer than coarse meal, but a scattering of bigger pieces for flakiness.

A pastry cutter a.k.a. dough mixer does a faster and better job than fingers, forks or two knives. Faster is better because the shortening doesn't heat up as much -- which does make a difference later in texture and the evenness of the rise. So does thoroughness. Invest the $3. This is one of the three most likely fixes. The second takes us backwards into the mixing process. And that's thoroughly mixing your dry ingredients before cutting in the fat. The best way is to sift the ingredients together, then re-sift. But that's heavy OCD. At least, mix everything thoroughly with a fork before adding the fat.

The third is to brush the tops with liquid (wash) immediately before baking. If nothing else, this will heal the surface somewhat, and give them a more even finish. The most common washes for biscuits are buttermilk, milk, melted butter, or a 2:1 mix of melted butter and honey. Just put a little in a small bowl or saucer and, after you have the biscuits in the pan and ready to bake, brush their tops lightly with the liquid. Use just enough pressure to smooth the dough with your brush.

Since you're not complaining about texture, you're probably handling the dough gently enough. Biscuit dough is tricky, in that it actually can take a little bit of abuse -- for instance "turning" to make layers. The trick is to stop messing with it the instant it starts to feel heavy (density change). Why do I mention this, if it's not the problem? Feel.

Biscuits are all about feel. Once you stumble into doing everything right a few times, you'll get a good sense of how the dough feels through the various stages. All down hill from there.

Think I'll make some scallion-cheese biscuits for breakfast,
BDL

[baytonemus]

Thanks for all of that input! Much appreciated. Maybe I'll post back when I get a chance to make another batch over the weekend.

JAY

[ducky]

I'd bet it's your baking powder. I did a side by side comparison of baking powders a long while back. I used all the same ingredients and technique in all the batches, only different baking powders. I found that when using Bob's Red Mill I got even color, Bakewell's Cream light spots, Rumford's medium spots and Hain Pure Foods dark spots. I still use Hain's for everything because it had the least bitter "baking powder" taste.