Biscuits

Sift one pound of flour on a table, divide it into four parts, and take one of these to make the leaven by making a circle with the flour and diluting half an ounce of compressed yeast with a little tepid water, then mix to make a soft paste; shape this leaven into a ball and cut a cross on top; lay it in a deep vessel and cover, leaving it to rise to double its height. Make a hollow in the center of the remaining flour, lay in it two ounces of sugar, a pinch of salt, seven whole eggs and two yolks; mix well together to form a paste, working it well so that it obtains considerable body, and then incorporate three ounces of butter. As soon as the leaven is ready mix it well but lightly into the paste, then lay it in a vessel and cover to let it rise to double its volume. Afterward knead it and with it fill some tin or sheet-iron half cylindrical molds, three and a half inches in diameter by twelve inches long, and previously buttered. Leave them until the dough rises as high as the level of the edges, then set these molds in the oven so the biscuits bake all alike to a fine golden color. Unmold them as soon as they are done and cut them across in quarter-inch slices; range these on tins and push into a slack oven to brown slightly.