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Dessert

Maryland Biscuits

A biscuit made with flour, lard, salt, and cold water, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 2 ingredients
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Maryland Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Rub the lard, flour, and salt together, mixing thoroughly.

  2. Add cold water by degrees until the dough is stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Beat on a heavy wooden block with an iron pestle until the dough is full of blisters.

  2. Make out in little cakes.

  3. Prick each cake with a silver fork.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

Lard (in the method)
Adds fat that keeps the biscuits tender and short by coating flour strands.
Flour (in the method)
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets during baking.

The step that matters

Beating the dough until it is full of blisters. Beating works air into the stiff dough and develops its layers, which gives the biscuits their light, flaky texture. Under-beating leaves them dense.

“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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