Cheese Biscuits
INGREDIENTS for small dish.-3 oz. of grated cheese, 3 oz. of flour, 3 oz. of butter, the yolk of an egg, cayenne. AVERAGE COST, 6d.
Season the cheese well with cayenne, and rub it, with the butter, in the flour, moisten with the yolk of an egg. Roll out the paste very thin, and cut into biscuits with a tin cutter. Bake a light brown in a quick oven.
These biscuits may be served either hot or CHEESE, CONSTITUENT PARTS. 85 cold, and will keep a long time good if put in a tin.
TIME.-10 minutes to bake.
Cheese, Constituent Parts of. -The chief kinds of cheese may be classified under the heads of cream cheeses, whole milk cheeses, and skimmed milk cheeses; but besides these distinct classes there are many graduations from the richest to the poorest quality.
Some of the English cheeses are mixtures of cream and milk, others of whole and skimmed milk, therefore the line of demarcation is but slight. Stilton, which by most people is esteemed the best of all cheeses, does not contain so much milk fat as some others, yet it is much richer than Cheddar, which may be said to represent the average good quality of a whole milk cheese, and is one of the nicest and most popular of our English ones.
After these two come Chesire and Gloucester to show a reduction in their proportion of milk fat, American ones a still greater reduction; while as an example of a cheese of only skimmed milk, a Dutch one may be quoted.
Cheese after, or with, other foods richer in heat-giving properties, is considered more digestible than when taken alone, and the richer and riper kinds are more easily assimilated; but whatever opinions are entertained as to its wholesomeness as an article of diet, it is certain that an enormous amount is made and consumed in this country. A fact to prove this is the great quantity of cheese made in the factories of the United States, and sent from thence to England; it being stated that out of 97,000,000 lbs. manufactured there in one year, the greater part was imported to Great Britain.
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF 1 LB. OF CHEESE OF GOOD QUALITY. ...
Ozs. grs.
Water Albuminoids Starch, &c. ... ... 100 5 214 ... ... ... 4 294 ... ... ... ... 0 140 Fat ... ... ... 4 322 Mineral Matter ... ... ... 0 341 16 0 ...
A short cheese pastry in equal weights of cheese, flour and butter, bound with a yolk. The text runs straight into an unrelated reference entry on the composition of cheese; ignore everything from "Cheese, Constituent Parts" onward.
- The measures in cups3 oz grated hard cheese is a scant cup loosely packed, 3 oz flour is about 2/3 cup, and 3 oz butter is 6 tablespoons. Weighing is more reliable here, since the ratio is the whole point of the recipe.
- A quick ovenRoughly 400-450F by modern equivalence, though such terms are only approximate. The recipe's 10 minutes suits biscuits rolled thin; check at 8, because the cheese browns fast and turns bitter once it goes past light brown.
- Which cheeseA dry Cheddar or Cheshire is the likely choice; the reference entry that follows the recipe names both as common English cheeses. Choose a firm, well-aged cheese and grate it fine; a young or moist cheese releases water and the paste will not hold together.
- Cayenne"Season the cheese well" is more than a token pinch, but 1/4 teaspoon for this quantity is already assertive. The heat is meant to be felt.
- Working the pasteRub the cold butter and cheese into the flour as for shortcrust, then add the yolk. If it will not come together, a teaspoon of cold water is enough; too much liquid makes them tough rather than short.
- Roll thin, and chill"Very thin" means about 1/8 inch. The dough is soft from the fat in the cheese, so rest it in the fridge for 20 minutes before rolling and again on the tray before baking, or the shapes spread.
- The 6d.The average cost is a period detail rather than a guide. Mrs Beeton priced almost every recipe.
Cheese biscuits belong to the savoury course, the small hot or sharply seasoned dish that closed a Victorian and Edwardian dinner in Britain after the sweet and before or alongside dessert wine, and that has no real counterpart in French service. A paste of equal parts cheese, butter and flour is the same idea as the cheese straws and cheese ramekins that appear elsewhere in Beeton, and it survives today as the shortbread-style cheese biscuit served with drinks. The reference passage that follows the recipe is characteristic of the book's later editions, which padded the alphabetical entries with nutritional tables and trade statistics; its remark that most of the 97 million pounds of American factory cheese went to Britain reflects a genuine shift, as cheap imported cheese from the United States and Canada reshaped the British market in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and pushed many English farmhouse makers out.