Rub the soda and cream-tartar into the flour, and sift all together before they are wet; then put in the salt; next the lard, rubbed into the prepared flour quickly and lightly; lastly, pour in the milk. Work out the dough rapidly, kneading with as few strokes as possible, since handling injures the biscuit. If properly prepared the dough will have a rough surface and the biscuit be flaky. The dough should also be very soft. If the flour stiffen it too much, add more milk. Roll out lightly, cut into cakes at least half an inch thick, and bake in a quick oven. The biscuit made by the friend from whom I had this receipt were marvels of lightness and sweetness. I have often thought of them since with regretful longing, when set down to so-called “soda-biscuit,” marbled with greenish-yellow streaks, and emitting, when split, an odor which was in itself an eloquent dissuasive to an educated appetite. Few cooks make really good, quick biscuit—why, I am unable to say, unless upon the principle of “brains will tell.” I have had more than one in my kitchen, who, admirable in almost every other respect, were absolutely unfit to be intrusted with this simple yet delicate manufacture. The common fault is to have too “heavy a hand” with soda, and to “guess at” the quantities, instead of measuring them. Eat while warm.
Graham Biscuit. ✠
- 3 cups Graham flour.
- 1 cup white flour.
- 3 cups milk.
- 2 tablespoonfuls lard.
- 1 heaping tablespoonful white sugar.
- 1 saltspoonful of salt.
- 1 teaspoonful of soda.
- 2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
Mix and bake as you do the white soda-biscuit (Mrs. E——‘s). They are good cold as well as hot.
Minute Biscuit.
- 1 pint sour, or buttermilk.
- 1 teaspoonful soda.
- 2 teaspoonfuls melted butter.
Flour to make soft dough—just stiff enough to handle. Mix, roll, and cut out rapidly, with as little handling as may be, and bake in a quick oven.
Graham Wheatlets.
- 1 pint Graham flour.
- Nearly a quart of boiling water or milk.
- 1 teaspoonful salt.
Scald the flour, when you have salted it, into as soft dough as you can handle. Roll it nearly an inch thick, cut in round cakes, lay upon a hot buttered tin or pan, and bake them in the hottest oven you can get ready. Everything depends upon heat in the manufacture of these. Some cooks spread them on a hot tin, and set this upon a red-hot stove. Properly scalded and cooked, they are light as puffs, and very good; otherwise they are flat and tough. Split and butter while hot.