Beaten Biscuit
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine 4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup lard.
Add 1 cup cold water and mix to a stiff dough.
Knead the dough for ten minutes.
Beat and shape
Beat the dough hard with a rolling pin or beater, turning it over and over until it blisters and becomes light and puffy.
Cut the dough with a small biscuit cutter, place the biscuits some distance apart on a pan, and prick each with a fork.
Bake
Bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and sheet-like strength.
- Lard (in the method)
- Adds fat that shortens the gluten, giving a tender, flaky crumb and rich flavor.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the flour to form a stiff dough while keeping the fat firm.
The step that matters
Beating the dough. Repeated hard beating works the gluten until the dough blisters and becomes light and puffy. Too little beating leaves dense biscuits, because the dough does not develop the layered, airy structure that gives the traditional texture.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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