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Dessert

Maryland Biscuit

A quick oven-baked biscuit made with flour, lard, cold water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Maryland Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, lard, cold water, and salt.

  2. Knead the dough well for about 10 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into biscuits and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure as gluten develops when the dough is mixed and kneaded.
Lard
Fat that coats flour particles, shortening the gluten network for a tender, flaky crumb.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well for about 10 minutes.. Kneading develops gluten, which gives the biscuits structure and rise. Kneading too long, however, builds up a tough network and can make the biscuits dense, so stop once the dough is smooth and cohesive.

“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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