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Breakfast

Breakfast Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with flour, baking powder, lard, salt, and cold water, baked at 400°F for twenty minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Breakfast Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot 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 and baking powder together three times.

  2. Rub the lard thoroughly into the flour.

  3. Mix with cold water to form a soft dough.

  4. Roll out and cut into biscuits.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

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 main structure of the biscuit as gluten develops with water and handling.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the biscuits rise in the oven.
Lard
Coats flour particles so the biscuit bakes up tender and flaky rather than tough.

The step that matters

Rub the lard thoroughly into the flour. Fat that is evenly rubbed into flour coats the flour particles and limits gluten development, so the biscuits stay tender. Unevenly distributed fat leaves pockets that bake unevenly and can make the texture tough.

“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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