Cooking TipsHow to Make Biscuits
In making the dough for hard biscuits it should be kept in a loose crumbly state until the whole is of an equal consistency, then work, rub, or press it together with your hands until the whole is collected or formed into a mass. If the old-fashioned biscuit brake is replaced by a biscuit machine so much the better for the baker and the goods he turns out. If so, then all that is necessary will be to properly adjust the rollers whether, for braking (that is making the dough) or rolling out for the cutter. If an amateur tries to make biscuits he will always experience some difficulty in moulding them if they are hand-made. When this is so it would be better to cut them out with a cutter.
Ship Biscuits
These were evidently the first biscuits, from which have sprung all the varieties of hard biscuits which we at present possess. They are of the same character as those which were first made by man in his progress towards civilization, and were baked or roasted on hot embers. Before this, men knew of no other use for their meal than to make it into a kind of porridge. Biscuits prepared in a simple fashion were for centuries the food of the Roman soldiers. The name is derived from the Latin bis, twice, and the French cuit = coctus, meaning twice baked or cooked.
Ship biscuits are composed of flour and water only; but some think a small proportion of yeast makes a great improvement in them. The method adopted is to make a small weak sponge as for bread previous to making the dough; the necessary quantity of water is then added. The flour used for the commoner sort of these biscuits is known as middlings or fine sharps; and those made from the finer or best are called captains or cabin biscuits. A sack of flour loses, by drying and baking, 28 lbs.
Captains" Biscuits
7 lbs. of fine flour, 6 ozs. of butter, 1 quart of water or milk. Rub the butter in with the flour until it is crumbled into very small pieces, make a bay in the centre of the flour, pour in the water or milk, make it into a dough, and break it when made into dough, chaff or mould up the required size, 4 or 5 ozs. each, pin out with a rolling pin about 5 inches in diameter, dock them and lay them with their faces together. When they are ready bake them in a moderately quick oven, of a nice brown color. These are seldom made with hand, as the machinery in use outstrips hand-made biscuits of this class in speed and gives a better appearance and quality.