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Cream Biscuits
Mrs. A. M. Gibbs.
Three heaping tablespoons of sour cream; put in a bowl or vessel containing a quart and fill two-thirds full of sweet milk, two teaspoons cream tartar, one teaspoon of soda, a little salt; pour the cream in the flour, mix soft and bake in a quick oven.
A quick soda biscuit built around a bowl-as-measure rather than a written flour quantity, which is the main thing to sort out before you start.
- The liquid measureThree heaping tablespoons of sour cream in a quart vessel filled two-thirds full of sweet milk gives roughly 2 2/3 cups of liquid in total. That is a large batch -- two dozen biscuits or more, depending on the size of your cutter; halving it is sensible for a household of two or three.
- No flour quantity is givenThe original assumes you know what "mix soft" feels like. For 2 2/3 cups liquid, expect somewhere around 6 to 7 cups of flour, added gradually until the dough is soft, slightly sticky, and just holds together. Stop short of a dough you can knead comfortably.
- Quick oven425 to 450F. Biscuits leavened with soda and cream of tartar need the heat to hit them fast, or the gas escapes before the crumb sets.
- Leavening balanceTwo teaspoons cream of tartar and one teaspoon soda is the familiar 2:1 acid-to-alkali proportion. Sift the cream of tartar and soda through the flour rather than adding them to the milk, or the reaction starts in the bowl.
- Sour cream then and nowIn this period this would have meant raw cream left to sour naturally, thinner and sharper than the modern product. Commercial cultured sour cream works; thin it with a little of the milk before adding so it disperses evenly.
- Sweet milkSimply unsoured milk. Whole milk is closest to what was meant.
- Handling and shapingPat the dough out about 3/4 inch thick, cut, and get it into the oven within a few minutes. Bake 10 to 14 minutes, until the tops are set and lightly browned.
Cream biscuits belong to the nineteenth-century family of chemically leavened quick breads that took over much of the everyday baking once soda and cream of tartar became cheap and reliable in American groceries. The pairing is the basis of baking powder, which combined the two in one tin. Recipes like this one, credited to a named contributor, are characteristic of the community cookbooks compiled from subscribers' own kitchens; the vagueness about flour and the use of a quart bowl as a measuring device reflect a book written by cooks for cooks who already knew the dough by touch. Households with a milk cow would have had sour cream on hand as a by-product of skimming.