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Squash Biscuits
1/2 cup squash (steamed and sifted) 1/4 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup sugar ½ teaspoon salt ½ cup scalded milk 1/4 cup lukewarm water 1/4 cup butter 2½ cups flour Add squash, sugar, sait, and butter to milk; when lukewarm, add dissolved yeast cake and flour; cover, and let rise over night. In morning shape into biscuits, let rise, and bake.
These are yeast-raised rolls, not the quick baking-powder biscuit an American reader now pictures. The dough is mixed at night and shaped in the morning, so plan around the long rise.
- The scrambled ingredient listThe two columns of the original have run together in transcription. Read it as: 1/2 cup sifted steamed squash, 1/4 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup lukewarm water, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 1/2 cups scalded milk, 1/4 cup butter, 2 1/2 cups flour. The sugar belongs with the squash and butter in the milk, not with the yeast.
- Yeast cakeCommercial compressed yeast cakes of the period were small, on the order of half an ounce to an ounce. A quarter of one is a very small amount of fresh yeast, perhaps half a teaspoon of active dry or instant yeast today. Such a small quantity suits a long overnight rise at cool room temperature rather than a two-hour one.
- Scalded milkScalding was routine with raw milk; it is usually explained as destroying something in the milk that slackens dough, and it also dealt with stray bacteria. Pasteurised milk does not need it, though heating and cooling does no harm, and here the hot milk is also what melts the butter and takes the chill off the squash.
- The squashSteamed and sifted means cooked dry and pushed through a sieve to a smooth purée, closer to a stiff mash than to canned pumpkin. Any dense winter squash works; if the purée is wet, drain or dry it in the pan or the dough will need considerably more flour.
- Flour is a floor, not a totalTwo and a half cups against a cup and a half of milk plus squash gives a very slack batter-dough. Expect to work in more flour when you shape in the morning, until the dough is soft but handleable.
- Overnight rise"Over night" assumed an unheated kitchen. In a modern 70F room the dough will be well over-risen by morning; a refrigerator overnight, brought back to room temperature before shaping, is nearer the intended pace.
- BakingThe original gives no oven. Rolls of this size want a hot oven, 400-425F, for about 15 to 20 minutes, until browned and hollow-sounding underneath.
- YieldAbout 15 to 18 small rolls, depending on how much flour the squash takes up.
Squash and potato both turn up in nineteenth-century New England yeast doughs for the same practical reason: their starch feeds the yeast and their moisture keeps the crumb soft for a day or two longer. Squash rolls have a long association with the New England autumn table, and are still often served at Thanksgiving in the region, though the connection is customary rather than anything the book itself claims. The 1/4 yeast cake is a marker of its moment: compressed yeast was sold by the cake, and recipes specified it by fraction.