Tea Biscuit
1 cup scalded milk 1 tablespoon sugar 2 tablespoons shortening 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 yeast cake dissolved in 1/2 cup water 4 cups Gold Medal flour Put the sugar, salt and shortening in a mixing bowl, add scalded milk; when lukewarm add dissolved yeast cake; add 3 cups of flour slowly, beating to a light batter, let rise to double the bulk; add 1 cup of flour, rise again, shape on moulding board, brush with melted butter, cover and rise till light. Bake in a quick oven from twenty to twenty-five minutes.
A plain yeast-raised roll of the sort that once stood in for baking-powder biscuits at supper. The method is a straight sponge-and-dough, and nothing in it is difficult; the units and the oven are the only things that need translating.
- Yeast cakeOne compressed yeast cake of the period is roughly equivalent to one 1/4-oz packet of active dry yeast, about 2 1/4 teaspoons. Dissolve it in the half cup of water at about 105F rather than the cold tap water the fresh cake would have tolerated.
- Quick oven425 to 450F. At that heat 20 to 25 minutes is right for rolls of a couple of ounces each; smaller ones will be done nearer 15.
- Scalded milkMilk was routinely scalded in the days of raw milk, whether for keeping quality or on the belief that it improved the dough. Pasteurised milk needs no scalding, though heating it does no harm and speeds the cooling to lukewarm. Let it fall to about 110F before the yeast goes in.
- ShorteningIn this book shortening means lard or a solid vegetable fat. Butter works and gives better flavour; two tablespoons is about an ounce.
- FlourGold Medal of the period was a hard spring-wheat flour, closer to today's bread flour than to all-purpose. Four cups is roughly 17 to 18 oz, but hold back the last half cup and judge by feel -- the dough should be soft and slightly tacky.
- The shaping stepThe recipe skips the detail: turn the risen dough onto a floured board, knead briefly, then divide and shape into rolls before the butter brushing and final rise. The dough is soft, so a light hand and a well-floured surface matter.
- Three risesTwo rises in the bowl and one after shaping is more than modern practice usually asks. Each should go to roughly double; the second and third will be faster than the first, so watch the dough rather than the clock.
- YieldAbout 18 small rolls, or a dozen larger ones. Best eaten the day they are baked -- there is very little fat or sugar here to keep them soft.
Its presence in a milling company's cookbook is no accident: books like this one were distributed to sell flour, and a yeast bread using four cups of a named brand made the case better than any advertisement. The recipe also marks a moment of transition -- compressed yeast cakes, sold fresh and reliable from roughly the 1870s onward, had made home yeast baking a matter of hours rather than the overnight sponges and homemade barm of the previous generation, though the three separate risings here still belong to the older, slower habit of mind.