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Tea Biscuit with Potato
3/4 cup hot riced potato 1/4 cup butter 1 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup scalded milk 1/2 yeast cake in 1/2 cup water 1 egg white slightly beaten 4 cups Gold Medal flour If set at 10 a. m., it will be ready to shape and bake for tea. Beat together potato, butter, sugar and salt. When the milk is lukewarm add the yeast cake. When yeast is dissolved combine with potato mixture. Add part of the flour slowly, beating constantly, then the white of egg, then more flour until stiff enough to knead. Knead until smooth, return to mixing bowl and let rise; cut the sponge down, let rise the second time, shape into small biscuits, let rise to double the bulk. Bake in a quick oven.
These are excellent to use for croustades.--Mrs. Cheney, Ft. Wayne, Ill.
A potato-enriched dinner roll set in the morning for the afternoon tea table. The potato is the point: its starch holds water, so the biscuits stay soft for a day longer than a plain milk roll would.
- Riced potatoThree-quarters of a cup of hot riced potato is roughly one medium russet, boiled and pushed through a ricer while still steaming. Rice it hot and unseasoned; cold or mashed-with-butter potato turns gluey and will drag the dough down.
- Half a yeast cakeCompressed yeast cakes of the period were commonly around 0.6 oz, though sizes varied, so half is roughly 1/3 oz — call it about 1 teaspoon of active dry or 3/4 teaspoon of instant. Cake yeast at this ratio was expected to work slowly over the several hours the 10 a.m. schedule allows.
- "Quick oven"Usually reckoned about 400–425F. Small enriched biscuits want the high heat so they set before the milk sugars and potato starch scorch; 12 to 15 minutes at that temperature is usually enough.
- Scalded milkScalding was done to kill wild organisms and deactivate whey proteins that slacken dough. Pasteurized milk needs no scalding for safety, but heating it to about 180F and cooling to lukewarm still gives a better rise. Do not add the yeast until the milk is under 110F.
- Flour quantityFour cups is a guide, not a rule — the moisture in your potato varies. The instruction "more flour until stiff enough to knead" is the real measure; aim for a soft, slightly tacky dough rather than a firm one.
- The egg whiteOnly the white goes in, beaten slightly, and it goes in mid-flour. It adds structure and a paler, finer crumb without the richness or colour of the yolk. Save the yolk for a wash if you want the tops glazed.
- Timing the two rises"Cut the sponge down" means deflate after the first rise. With modern yeast the whole schedule compresses: about 1 to 1.5 hours for each of the first two rises at room temperature, then 30 to 45 minutes for the shaped biscuits. To keep the 10 a.m. start, use the smaller quantity of yeast and let the first rise happen in a cool room or the refrigerator.
- Yield and croustadesExpect about 18 to 24 small biscuits from this dough. For croustades, bake them slightly larger, cool, cut off the tops and hollow out the crumb to hold creamed fillings.
Potato in bread dough was thrift and technique at once: it stretched the wheat, and the gelatinized potato starch retained moisture and fed the yeast, giving a lighter, longer-keeping roll than flour alone. American cookbooks carried potato breads and potato yeast throughout the nineteenth century, when commercial yeast was less widely relied on and home-made potato-and-water ferments were one of the household leavenings in use. This recipe belongs to the era just after — half a purchased yeast cake, the schedule pinned to a clock — but the potato remains. The attribution to Mrs. Cheney of Fort Wayne is typical of the Gold Medal books, which included recipes sent in by home cooks and served as advertising for Washburn-Crosby's flour; "tea biscuit" here means a small soft yeast roll for the afternoon tea table, not the chemically leavened Southern biscuit.