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Dixie Biscuits
3 level teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder I level teaspoon salt 2 rounding tablespoons shortening 1 cup sweet milk Whites of 2 eggs Prepare flour, baking powder, salt and shortening as for Standard Biscuit; beat the egg whites very stiff, add to the milk and mix dough. Roll thin, brush well with melted butter, fold over and press dough together before cutting. Prick the biscuit with a fork before placing in the oven, and bake quickly. This makes splendid shortcake.
A folded, buttered biscuit from a baking-powder company's promotional booklet. The flour is missing because the recipe leans on the Standard Biscuit entry earlier in the book.
- The missing flourThe original genuinely does not state it on this page; it depends on the Standard Biscuit entry earlier in the book. Judging by the salt, shortening and liquid here, about 2 cups of soft all-purpose flour is a reasonable working figure; adjust with a spoonful more if the whipped whites make the dough slack.
- Sweet milkMeans fresh whole milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that many contemporary recipes call for. Do not substitute buttermilk here; there is no soda in the formula to neutralize the acid.
- Calumet baking powderA double-acting powder of the sodium-aluminium-sulphate and phosphate type, broadly comparable to standard modern supermarket baking powder. Three level teaspoons against roughly 2 cups of flour is on the generous side but works; measure level, since excess can leave a metallic edge.
- Rounding tablespoonsBy the usual period rule of thumb a rounding spoon is about one and a half times a level one, so roughly 3 level tablespoons of shortening in total. Lard or vegetable shortening both suit; butter will brown faster.
- Bake quicklyThe recipe gives no temperature, only the instruction to bake quickly; a hot oven, somewhere in the 425-450F range, suits the intent. Biscuits want high heat to set the outside before the leavening exhausts itself, and these thin folded ones should be done in roughly 10 to 12 minutes.
- The fold is the pointRolling thin, buttering, folding and pressing before cutting gives a layer that pulls apart cleanly at the seam. Press only at the edges of the cut, and cut straight down without twisting or the layers seal shut.
- Beaten whitesFold the stiff whites into the milk gently rather than stirring them in; the loft comes from the air as much as the powder, and overworking the dough afterward flattens both.
- Yield and the shortcake noteOn the assumed flour quantity, expect roughly a dozen biscuits from a 2-inch cutter. For the shortcake use suggested at the end, split at the fold, where the butter is, and fill with sweetened fruit.
Reliable Recipes was a giveaway booklet issued by the Calumet Baking Powder Company of Chicago, one of the American baking-powder brands of the early twentieth century, and its recipes name the leavening by brand while leaving the flour to a cross-reference. The folded, buttered treatment -- the sheet greased, doubled and cut so it opens along a seam -- is the same trick used for the folded rolls sometimes called pocketbook rolls, though those are yeast-raised, as are Parker House rolls. "Dixie" here reads more as a nod to the South's reputation for hot soft-wheat biscuits than as a claim of provenance. The beaten egg whites are the old-fashioned touch, from a period when whipped whites were sometimes used as a supplementary leavener.