Make a hole in the flour. Put in the other ingredients, in the following order: sugar, butter, milk, and yeast. Do not stir the ingredients after putting them together. Arrange this at ten o’clock at night; set it in a cool place until ten o’clock the next morning, when mix all together, and knead it fifteen minutes by the clock. Put it in a cool place again until four o’clock P.M., when cut out the rolls, and set each one apart from its neighbor in the pan. Set it for half an hour in a warm place. Bake fifteen minutes.
Beaten Biscuit.
Rub one quarter of a pound of lard into one and a half pounds of flour, adding a pinch of salt. Mix enough milk or water with it to make a stiff dough. Beat the dough well with a rolling-pin for half an hour or more, or until the dough will break when pulled. Little machines come for the purpose of making beaten biscuit, which facilitate the operation. Form into little biscuit, prick them on top several times with a fork, and bake.
Soda and Cream of Tartar Biscuit.
Ingredients: One quart of flour, one tea-spoonful of soda, two tea-spoonfuls cream of tartar, one even tea-spoonful of salt, lard or butter the size of a small egg, and milk.
Put the soda, cream of tartar, and salt on the table; mash them smoothly with a knife, and mix well together; mix them as evenly in the flour as possible; then pass it all through the sieve two or three times. The success of the biscuits depends upon the equal distribution of these ingredients. Mix in the lard or butter (melted) as evenly as possible, taking time to rub it between the open hands, to break any little lumps. Now pour in enough milk to make the dough consistent enough to roll out, mixing it lightly with the ends of the fingers. The quicker it is rolled out, cut, and baked, the better will be the biscuits.
The biscuits are cheaper made with cream of tartar and soda than with baking-powder, yet many make the
Biscuits With Baking-powder.
They are made as in the last receipt, merely substituting two heaping tea-spoonfuls of baking-powder for the cream of tartar and soda, and taking the same care to mix evenly.
These biscuits are nice rolled quite thin (half an inch), and cut with a small cutter two inches in diameter. They may be served hot or cold, and are often used at evening companies, cold, split in two, buttered, and with chopped ham (as for sandwiches) placed between them. They are preferable to bread sandwiches, as they do not dry as quickly, and are, perhaps, neater to handle. These biscuits are especially nice when made with Professor Horsford’s self-raising flour—of course, the raising powders are omitted. The appreciation of hot biscuits is quite a Southern and Western American fancy. They are rarely seen abroad, and are generally considered unwholesome in the Eastern States.