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Tea Biscuit
One quart of flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, one-half teaspoon of salt, one and one-half tablespoons of butter, one-half cup of milk. Make soft enough to handle, and cut out and bake well in a hot oven.
— Mrs. Fred Decker
A community-cookbook shorthand written for cooks who already knew what biscuit dough should feel like. Two of the quantities as printed will not work without adjustment.
- The liquid is shortA quart of flour is about 4 cups, and half a cup of milk will not wet it. The instruction "make soft enough to handle" is the real measurement: expect roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of milk for that much flour, added until the dough just holds together.
- The leavening is short tooTwo teaspoons of baking powder for 4 cups of flour is between a third and a half of modern practice, which runs 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup. Expect a dense biscuit at the printed rate.
- Fat, as writtenOne and a half tablespoons of butter across a quart of flour makes a very lean biscuit by modern standards. It is not an error, but doubling or tripling the butter gives a richer result.
- "A hot oven"425 to 450F. Biscuits want fast heat so the leavening lifts before the crumb sets; 12 to 15 minutes for a 1/2-inch round, until the tops are pale gold.
- HandlingWork the butter in until the flour looks sandy, add milk all at once, and knead only a few turns. Overworking develops gluten and gives a tough, bready biscuit.
- Cutting outRoll or pat to about 1/2 inch and press the cutter straight down without twisting, which seals the edge and stops the rise. Set them close together on the sheet for soft sides, apart for crisp ones.
- YieldA quart of flour makes a large batch, roughly two dozen 2-inch biscuits. Halve everything for a household of two or three; they are best within an hour of baking.
"Tea biscuit" in an American church or village cookbook of this period means a plain baking-powder biscuit meant for the tea table rather than the sweet English tea biscuit sold in tins. Chemical leavening had made this kind of quick bread ordinary by the late nineteenth century: where an earlier cook needed yeast and hours of rising, or saleratus balanced against sour milk, commercial baking powder let a batch be mixed and baked quickly, which is one reason so many contributed receipts like this one are three lines long. The compression is characteristic of the genre, as is the leaving of the liquid to judgment.