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Cheese Biscuits No. 1
2 cups of flour 4 teaspoons of baking powder 2 tablespoons of butter 1/2 teaspoon salt Grated cheese sufficient to give desired flavor 1 cup of milk Mix all the ingredients, excepting the cheese, as for baking powder biscuits. Roll thin, divide into two parts, sprinkle one half with grated cheese, lay the other half of the dough over the cheese, cut with a small cutter, and bake. The oven should be hot enough to bake the biscuits quickly.
A layered baking-powder biscuit with the cheese sandwiched in the middle rather than worked through the dough. Two things carry it: a genuinely hot oven and enough cheese to taste.
- Oven heatThe book gives no temperature, only that the oven should be "hot enough to bake the biscuits quickly"; in modern terms that reads as a hot oven, somewhere around 450F. Biscuits raised with baking powder depend on fast heat to set the crust before the leavening gas escapes; a moderate oven gives flat, dry results. Roughly eight to twelve minutes for small rounds.
- Cheese, unmeasuredThe original leaves the amount to the cook, which was common in recipes of this period. About 1 cup of firmly packed grated sharp cheddar for this quantity of dough reads as cheese without making the layer slip apart. A dry aged cheese behaves better than a young one, which weeps fat.
- Baking powderFour teaspoons to 2 cups of flour is high by current practice, where 1 teaspoon per cup is standard. Period baking powders varied in strength and are often assumed to have been less reliable than modern ones, which may account for the higher proportion. Reduce to 2 or 3 teaspoons with a fresh can, or expect a faintly metallic aftertaste.
- FlourHousehold flour of the period was often softer than today's all-purpose, closer to modern pastry flour, though this varied by region and miller. Modern all-purpose works; if the dough feels tough, replace a quarter of it with cake flour.
- The milk is a starting pointOne cup will usually give a workable dough, but modern flours absorb differently. Add the last of it a spoonful at a time and stop when the dough just holds together — a sticky dough cannot be rolled thin without tearing the top layer.
- Handling the layersRoll each half to about a quarter inch, press the top sheet down firmly over the cheese so the two sheets bond, and cut straight down with a floured cutter without twisting. Twisting seals the cut edge and stops the layers rising.
- YieldAbout 16 to 20 biscuits from a 2-inch cutter. Best within an hour of baking; they reheat acceptably at 350F for five minutes but do not keep well, as the cheese layer goes greasy on standing.
Cheese biscuits belong to the large family of American quick breads that grew out of the spread of chemical leavening in the second half of the nineteenth century — baking powder freed the cook from yeast timetables and made hot bread a matter of twenty minutes rather than a day. The technique here, rolling the dough thin and enclosing a filling between two sheets before cutting, is the same one used for jam and mincemeat turnovers of the period, and it keeps grated cheese out of the gluten where it would shorten the dough and hinder the rise. Cheese was the household's most familiar substitute for meat protein, and a cheese biscuit let a supper table carry a savoury course without a joint or a chop.