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Biscuit Powder
Biscuits may be reduced to a fine powder, by first drying them in a cool oven, and then rolling them with a common rolling-pin on a clean board. This kind of powdered biscuit is much used for infants' food. It should be passed through a sieve after rolling, and will then be fine enough for any purpose. Keep dry in a tin with a tight cover.
A pantry preparation rather than a dish: dried plain biscuits crushed to a powder for thickening, coating, or invalid and infant cookery. A few terms need translating before it makes sense in a modern kitchen.
- What "biscuits" means hereThese are hard, dry, plain English biscuits — Marie, rich tea, arrowroot, water biscuits or rusks — not American soft baking-powder biscuits, which are far too moist to powder. Anything sweet, buttery or filled will clump rather than grind.
- A cool ovenSomewhere in the region of 250-275F is a reasonable modern reading, though the recipe gives no figure and historical 'cool oven' ranges vary. The object is to drive out residual moisture without browning, so leave the biscuits in a single layer until they snap cleanly, then cool completely before rolling. Warm biscuits will not powder; they smear.
- Rolling versus a machineA food processor does the whole job in under a minute. The rolling-pin method between two sheets of parchment gives more control if you want a very fine, even powder.
- Do sieve itThe instruction to pass it through a sieve is not optional if you want it fine. Return the coarse fragments left in the sieve to the board and roll again rather than discarding them.
- Not for infantsThe stated purpose — infants' food — is obsolete and should be ignored. Modern paediatric guidance on first foods, iron, sugar and allergen introduction bears no relation to nineteenth-century practice, and commercial biscuits carry sugar and salt levels unsuited to babies.
- What to use it for nowIt works as a coating for fried fish or croquettes, a thickener for milk puddings and sauces, a topping for baked fruit, and the base of cheesecake and refrigerator-cake crusts.
- StorageThe tight-lidded tin matters. Powdered biscuit takes up moisture from the air readily and any fat in it will eventually go rancid, so keep it sealed and use it reasonably fresh; the freezer will hold it longer.
- YieldAbout 200 g of dry biscuits gives roughly 2 cups of powder.
Reducing dry bread and biscuit to powder was an everyday economy in Victorian kitchens, where crumb served as thickener, coating and filler. The specific link to infants' food reflects a period in which pap, panada and biscuit-and-water were standard for weaning and for invalids, before the rise of proprietary infant formulas and, later, of paediatric nutrition as a discipline. Arrowroot and rusk biscuits were sold with invalid and infant feeding in mind. The advice to keep it in a tin with a tight cover is a reminder of how quickly anything dry spoiled in a kitchen without airtight containers or refrigeration.