Home › Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen › Tea Biscuits (II)
Tea Biscuits (II)
Mrs. Arthurs.
One quart flour, four teaspoonfuls Cook's Friend baking powder, about the size of an egg of butter, one tablespoonful of brown sugar, grate in a little nutmeg; bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.
— Mrs. Curtis' Muffins
Mrs. Opham.
One quart flour, two and one-half teaspoonsful Cook's Friend baking powder. Mix all dry in flour. Add cold water enough to make a stiff batter, and then a tablespoonful of melted lard.
Two entries run together here: a sweetened tea biscuit from Mrs. Arthurs and, tacked on, Mrs. Curtis' muffins as given by Mrs. Opham. Both are written in the shorthand of a cook who assumed the reader already knew the method.
- The missing liquidThe first recipe names no liquid at all, which is an omission rather than a technique — a quart of flour needs roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk or water to come together as a soft biscuit dough. Add it gradually and stop when the dough just holds; the original gives no guidance, so judge by feel.
- A quart of flourMeasured dry, a quart is about 4 cups, or 500-560 g depending on how it is scooped. Each recipe therefore makes a large batch — figure 18 to 24 biscuits or a dozen and a half muffins.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand, made by McLaren's, sold in Canada when this book was compiled. It was a single-acting powder rather than a modern double-acting one, and period recipes often call for more leavening than we would now; if the four teaspoons for the biscuits or two and a half for the muffins seem excessive, reduce them and judge by the result.
- "Size of an egg" of butterAbout 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. Cut it into the flour cold and rub to coarse crumbs; the recipe's silence on method reflects that biscuit-making was assumed knowledge.
- A quick ovenNo temperature is given; the term is usually taken to mean somewhere around 400-450F. Twenty minutes at that heat suits a thick biscuit; thinner ones may be done in 12 to 15, so check early.
- Melted lard, added lastMrs. Opham's muffins mix everything dry, then bring the batter together with cold water before the fat goes in, which is an unusual order. Shortening or oil substitutes directly if lard is not to hand.
- "Stiff batter"Thicker than pancake batter, thin enough to drop from a spoon. No pan or oven heat is specified; a well-greased standard muffin tin in a hot oven is the nearest modern equivalent.
- NutmegGrate it fresh, as directed. Pre-ground nutmeg in a jar loses most of its aroma within months and will read as dusty rather than warm.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in 1877 by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada," and it is essentially a subscription volume: contributions were solicited by name, printed with the contributor's name attached, and the proceeds went to the Hospital for Sick Children. That accounts for the form of this page — two unrelated recipes from two women, set down as briefly as each chose to write them, with no editorial hand smoothing over the gaps. The named brand of baking powder is worth noting too. Chemical leavening was still new enough in the 1870s that cooks specified which product they trusted, and Cook's Friend, made by McLaren's, was the household name in Canada in the way that Royal was becoming in the United States. "Tea biscuits" here means the small quick bread served with afternoon or evening tea, a category that in Canadian usage sat somewhere between the British scone and the American baking-powder biscuit and has kept the name to this day.