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Dessert

Beaten Biscuit

A stiff dough biscuit made with flour, lard, salt, and water, baked until hard.

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

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. In a bowl, combine the flour, lard, and salt.

  2. Add enough water to form a stiff dough.

Beat and bake

  1. Knead and beat the dough for at least 30 minutes until it snaps and blisters.

  2. Place the dough in a pan without touching.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the biscuits are hard around the sides.

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
Forms the dough's structure once mixed with water and beaten.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the biscuit and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Knead and beat the dough for at least 30 minutes. Long beating develops gluten strands and builds structure, so the dough snaps and blisters and bakes into a firm, layered biscuit. Skimping on beating leaves a dense, soft result.

“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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