Food History

I’m still thinking of biscuits and scones. This is largely because it’s so very hot here. Too hot to bake, but not too hot to dream of a day when baking is possible.

Today’s imaginary afternoon tea is from GOOD HOUSEKEEPING’S Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries, 1922, one of my many, many sources for the Prohibition Banquet. The first progress report for Conflux 5 is about to come out and with it, the announcement about the Prohibition Banquet. Treasure your advance knowledge – the geekworld is about to catch up!

Aunt Malindy’s Buttermilk Biscuit

4 1/2 cupfuls bread flour
1 teaspoonful soda
1 teaspoonful baking-powder
1 1/2 teaspoonfuls salt
2 tablespoonfuls lard
2 cupfuls buttermilk

Sift the flour, baking-powder, soda, and salt together. Mix the lard in well and add the buttermilk. Knead until very smooth, roll to one-half inch in thickness, cut with small round cutter, and bake about fifteen minutes in an oven heated to 450 degrees F. Serve piping hot. Brooklyn, N. Y.

Corn Biscuit

1 cupful bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoonful baking-powder
1/2 cupful white cornmeal
1/2 cupful sour milk or butter-
1 tablespoonful sugar
milk
1/2 teaspoonful salt
3 tablespoonfuls melted shortening
scant 1/2 teaspoonful soda
1egg

Mix and sift together the dry ingredients; add the egg well beaten. Mix thoroughly and stir in the milk and melted shortening. Beat one minute. Turn into small, greased pans and bake at 400 degrees F. for ten to fifteen minutes. Sour cream makes these muffins even more delicious. When substituting sour cream for the sour milk, it is necessary to use only one tablespoonful of shortening in place of the three table-spoonfuls called for. Chester, Va.

Emergency Corn Biscuits

11/2 cupfuls bread flour
1 cupful cold water
1/2 cupful cornmeal
1 teaspoonful sugar
2 tablespoonfuls shortening
5 teaspoonfuls baking-powder
1 teaspoonful salt

Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Mix in the shortening with two knives or the tips of the fingers. Add the cold water and mix well. Drop by spoonfuls into greased muffin pans or on a greased baking sheet one and one-half inches apart. Bake twenty minutes in an oven which registers 450 degrees F.Trenton, N. J.

Maryland Biscuit

4 cupfuls flour, unsifted
6 tablespoonfuls shortening
3 tablespoonfuls thin cream or milk
1/2 cupful cold water
c1/2 teaspoonful salt

Combine the dry ingredients; work in the shortening. Add the liquid. Place the dough on a flat surface and beat with an ax or mallet for twenty minutes, beating the dough out flat, rolling it up, and repeating the process. Shape into biscuits, about one-half inch thick. Prick the entire surface of each with a fork. Bake in a 450 degree F. oven fifteen minutes. Sandy Spring, Md.

Orange Biscuits

2 cupfuls bread flour
2 tablespoonfuls shortening
4 teaspoonfuls baking-powder
About 1/2 cupful milk
1 teaspoonful salt
Loaf sugar
1 orange

Sift the flour, baking-powder, and salt together. Work in the shortening with two knives or the finger-tips. Add milk to make a soft dough, stirring with a knife or spatula. Toss on a well-floured board, roll to one-half inch in thickness and shape into small and dainty biscuits. Then grate the orange rind and press out the juice from the orange. Dip as many lumps of sugar as there are biscuits into the juice, moistening thoroughly. Remove and plunge a lump of orange sugar into the center of each biscuit, sprinkle with grated rind and bake in an oven heated to 450 degrees F. for twelve to fifteen minutes. Serve hot or cold. Ktilingly, Conn.

Southern California Biscuit

2 cupfuls bread flour
1/2 cupful milk
4 teaspoonfuls baking-powder
2 tablespoonfuls butter or margarine
3 tablespoonfuls shortening
1 teaspoonful salt
Orange marmalade

Sift together the flour, baking-powder, and salt. “Work in the shortening with two knives or the tips of the fingers until well blended. Add the milk gradually and turn out on a well-floured board. Roll to one-fourth inch in thickness. Cut into small rounds and brush over one-half of the rounds with the butter melted, placing the other rounds on top. Bake in well-greased pans from twelve to fifteen minutes at 450 degrees F. Immediately after removing from the oven, lift off the top of each biscuit and put one teaspoonful of orange marmalade in the center of each bottom round. Replace the tops and serve at once. New York, N. Y.

ALPHABET COOKIES

1 cupful butter or margarine
Grated rind 1 lemon
1 cupful sugar
1 tablespoonful crushed cardamom
2 eggs
4 cupfuls pastry flour
1 teaspoonful vanilla

Cream together the butter and sugar; add the eggs well beaten and the rest of the ingredients. Knead the mixture in the bowl with the hands until thoroughly mixed, then cut off a small portion, and, with the palms of the hands, roll it into a long cylindrical strip about one-half inch thick. Form the dough into any letters desired and bake on a greased baking sheet at 4500 F. for about ten minutes. Seattle, Wash.