Skip to main content
Dessert

Beat Biscuit

A quick biscuit made by beating dough with lard and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Beat Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Add the lard and mix until crumbly.

  3. Gradually add cold water to form a very stiff dough.

  4. Beat the dough for 45 minutes.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake 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 structure of the dough once mixed with water.
Lard
Adds fat that shortens the dough and keeps the biscuit tender.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff dough.

The step that matters

Beat the dough for 45 minutes. Long beating works the stiff dough repeatedly, developing gluten and layers that give the biscuit its characteristic texture. Stopping early leaves the texture underdeveloped.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes