THE COLONEL’S BISCUITS.
Mix a slight pinch of salt with some fine sifted flour; make it into a smooth paste with thin cream, and bake the biscuits gently, after having prepared them for the oven like those which precede. Store them as soon as they are cold in a dry canister, to preserve them crisp: they are excellent.
AUNT CHARLOTTE’S BISCUITS.
These biscuits, which are very simple and very good, may be made with the same dough as fine white bread, with the addition of from half to a whole ounce of butter to the pound kneaded into it after it has risen. Break the butter small, spread out the dough a little, knead it in well and equally, and leave it for about half an hour to rise; then roll it a quarter of an inch thick, prick it well all over, cut out the biscuits, and bake them in a moderate oven from ten to fifteen minutes: they should be crisp quite through, but not deeply coloured.
White-bread dough, 2 lbs.; butter, 1 to 2 oz.: to rise 1/2 hour. Baked in moderate oven 10 to 15 minutes.
Obs.—To make the biscuits by themselves, proceed as for Bordyke bread; but use new milk for them, and work three ounces of butter into two pounds of flour before the yeast is added.
EXCELLENT SODA BUNS.
Work into half a pound of flour three ounces of butter, until it is quite in crumbs; mix thoroughly with them four ounces of sugar, the slightest pinch of salt, an ounce, or rather more, of candied orange or, shred extremely small, and a little grated nutmeg; to these pour boiling a small teacupful of cream, or of milk when this cannot be had; mix them a little, and add immediately two eggs, leaving out the white of one, and when the whole is well mingled, dust over, and beat well into it, less than half a teaspoonful of good carbonate of soda, perfectly free from lumps; rub an oven-tin with butter, drop the buns upon it with a spoon, and send them to a moderate oven. When they are firm to the touch in every part, and well coloured underneath, they are done. They resemble good cakes, if properly made, although in reality they are not rich: to render them so the proportion of sugar and of butter can be increased, and currants added also. It is immaterial, we find, whether they be put into the oven as soon as they are mixed, or an hour afterwards. They are equally light. These proportions make just a dozen of small buns.
Flour, 1/2 lb.; butter, 3 oz.; sugar, 4 oz.; candied orange-rind, 1 oz. or more; grated nutmeg; cream (or milk) 1 small teacupful; egg-yolks 2, white 1; good carbonate of soda about the third of a teaspoonful: 15 to 25 minutes, moderate oven.
For Geneva Buns See Chapter [30].