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Baking Powder Biscuits

A quick biscuit made with flour, salt, baking powder, and lard, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Baking Powder Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together.

  2. Mix in the lard until well combined.

  3. Handle the dough as little as possible.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into biscuits.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the biscuits rise and become light.
Lard
Coats flour particles and creates tender, flaky layers as it melts in the oven.

The step that matters

Handle the dough as little as possible. Mixing and kneading develop gluten, the flour's elastic network. Overworked dough becomes tough and dense, while light handling keeps biscuits tender.

“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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