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Buttermilk Biscuits
2 cups Five Roses flour (sifted) 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon salt Lard size of walnut Buttermilk (enough to make soft dough not thick enough to roll).
Mix together and empty on to wellfloured board, smooth out a little and cut into size desired. Bake in hot oven.
A single-bowl biscuit with the leavening built in rather than bought as baking powder. The dough is deliberately wetter than a rolled biscuit dough, and that is the whole point of the method.
- The hinge: keep it softThe recipe insists on a dough "not thick enough to roll," and it means it. Add buttermilk until the mass is sticky and barely holds together, then pat it out on a heavily floured board with floured hands rather than a rolling pin. Extra flour worked in to make it manageable gives a dense, dry biscuit.
- Lard size of walnutAbout 1 1/2 tablespoons, roughly 20 g. Rub or cut it into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Cold butter or shortening substitutes directly, though lard gives the flakier, more tender crumb these biscuits were built around.
- How much buttermilkThe original gives no quantity, only "enough to make soft dough"; the amount needed will vary with the flour. Expect somewhere between 3/4 and 1 cup for 2 cups of flour. Add most of it at once, then dribble in the rest.
- Soda and cream of tartarTogether these are homemade single-acting baking powder, which fires the moment it gets wet. Mix, shape and get the pan into the oven without delay. The buttermilk supplies additional acid, so the full teaspoon of soda is on the generous side; scant it slightly if you find a soapy or metallic note.
- Hot oven425-450F. Biscuits need the high heat to set the crust before the gas escapes. Bake on an ungreased or parchment-lined sheet, sides nearly touching for soft edges, spaced apart for crisp ones.
- Five Roses flourA Canadian hard-wheat all-purpose flour, somewhat higher in protein than most American all-purpose. Ordinary all-purpose works; if you use bread flour, mix only until the dough comes together.
- Time and yieldTen to twelve minutes, until risen and browned on top. Two cups of flour gives about ten to twelve biscuits cut at 2 inches. Best within the hour of baking.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to sell its flour, and like most milling-company books it collected recipes contributed by home cooks across Canada, which is why the measurements here are so casual: lard the size of a walnut, buttermilk enough to make a soft dough. Buttermilk in this period was the genuine article, the thin sour liquid left after churning butter. Pairing it with soda was ordinary economy, and the added cream of tartar reflects a habit often said to predate commercial baking powder.