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French Tea Biscuits
1/4 cup sugar 1 egg (not beaten) Piece of butter size of egg (melted) 1 cup sweet milk 1 nutmeg 2½ teaspoons baking powder 3 cups Five Roses flour (sifted with baking powder).
This is a contributor's ingredient list with the method left out, as was common in the Five Roses book — the assumption being that any cook knew how to make a tea biscuit. What follows fills in the gaps and translates the older measures.
- There is no method, so use the standard oneSift the flour, baking powder and a half teaspoon of salt together; stir the sugar, whole egg, melted butter, milk and nutmeg into it to a soft dough; pat out about three-quarters of an inch thick, cut in rounds and bake. Handle it as little as possible — this is a biscuit dough, not a batter.
- "Piece of butter size of egg"An egg's bulk of butter is conventionally reckoned at about two ounces, so roughly 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons, 55 g), melted and cooled slightly so it does not scramble the egg.
- "Sweet milk"Simply fresh milk, as opposed to the sour or buttermilk called for elsewhere in the book. Whole milk is the closest match.
- One nutmeg is a great dealA whole grated nutmeg yields roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons — assertive even by 1913 standards. One teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg gives a clearly spiced biscuit; go to the full nut only if you want the spice to dominate.
- Egg "not beaten"The egg goes in whole and is worked in with the milk rather than beaten first. The recipe gives no reason for it, and it may be no more than a saved step.
- SaltNone is listed. That may reflect the use of salted butter; if your butter is unsalted, add half a teaspoon of salt to the dry ingredients.
- The flourFive Roses was a hard Canadian spring wheat flour, stronger than most modern all-purpose. Ordinary all-purpose works; if the dough seems stiff, add milk a tablespoon at a time until it is soft but not sticky.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives no oven directions. A hot oven, about 425F, for 12 to 15 minutes, until risen and lightly browned, suits a biscuit of this kind. Bake the rounds soon after cutting rather than letting them stand.
- YieldThree cups of flour gives roughly eighteen biscuits cut at two inches. Best eaten the day they are made, split and buttered while still warm.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and Winnipeg and distributed as advertising for its Five Roses flour; much of its content came from recipes submitted by Canadian housewives, which is why entries like this one read as personal shorthand rather than tested instructions. "Biscuit" here is the British and Canadian quick bread — what an American cook would call a baking-powder biscuit and a Scot a scone — and "tea biscuit" places it squarely at afternoon tea. The "French" is harder to pin down, and no particular French original suggests itself. The heavy hand with nutmeg is period-typical: the spice was sold whole and grated fresh as needed.