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Vanilla Biscuits
4 ounces of flour 4 ounces of pine kernels 1 ounce of sugar 2 ounces of butter 1 teaspoon of baking powder 2 drops of essence of vanilla Put the pine kernels twice through a nut mill. Rub the butter into the flour free from lumps, add the sugar and ground pine kernels, and then the baking powder and vanilla, and mix all together thoroughly. Roll out a moderately thin paste, cut into rounds, and bake in a quick oven ten to fifteen minutes.
A short British nut biscuit — "biscuit" here means a crisp cookie, not an American quick bread. The recipe is workable, but it assumes equipment and habits that need translating.
- The hinge: there is no liquidNothing binds this dough but butter and the oil in the pine nuts. Ground finely enough, the kernels may release enough oil to make the paste cohere when pressed and rolled; if it stays sandy, a teaspoon or two of milk or water will bring it together and does no harm.
- Weights, not cups4 oz flour is a scant cup; 4 oz pine nuts about ¾ cup; 2 oz butter is half a stick; 1 oz sugar is 2 tablespoons. This is a lightly sweetened biscuit by modern standards.
- Nut millA rotary nut mill grated nuts to a dry powder. A food processor will turn oily pine nuts to paste instead — pulse in short bursts, or grind them with the sugar to keep the mixture loose.
- A quick oven425–450°F. At that heat, thin rounds carrying this much nut oil colour fast; check at seven or eight minutes rather than trusting the full ten to fifteen. Pine nuts scorch and turn bitter well before they look burnt.
- Essence of vanillaVictorian essences varied in strength and were often stronger than the modern supermarket product. Two drops is a very small quantity; about a quarter teaspoon of modern extract is a reasonable substitute.
- Baking powderA full teaspoon to 4 oz of flour is generous by modern standards. Half a teaspoon may give a cleaner flavour.
- YieldRolled thin and cut in 2-inch rounds, roughly 20–24 biscuits. They crisp as they cool and keep about a week in a tin.
Pine kernels appear in British vegetarian cookery of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when meatless cookery leaned on nuts to supply the protein and fat that meat otherwise provided. A hand-cranked nut mill -- the same tool used for nut butters, nut roasts and nut "meats" -- is the equipment the instruction to pass the kernels through twice assumes, which is why it needs no further explanation here.