Beaten Biscuit (Old Style)

History

"Beaten Biscuit: (Old Style.)" is recorded in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913). It is defined by labour rather than ingredients: a quart of sifted flour, half a teaspoon of salt, a teacup of very cold lard cut in small, wet with cold water — "ice water is best" — into a very stiff dough. That dough is laid on a floured block or marble slab and given "one hundred strokes with a mallet or rolling pin," folded afresh as it beats thin and dredged with flour if it begins to stick.

Beating is what makes the biscuit; the dough is worked until it blisters, and there is no leavening but the air driven into it. In the households this book describes, that half-hour of hammering was done by enslaved and, later, hired Black cooks — the book itself records elsewhere that its author learned her kitchen from a cook it names only by a household title. The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular version.

"Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" is a mixture of recipes and plantation reminiscence. McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War, and the book's affection for that world goes unexamined in it: its dedication is "to our Mammys," and its opening holds that being "the best fed people in the world" let "we of the South Country... put up the best fight in history."

Ingredients

• 1 quart flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teacup lard
• cold water

Instructions

1. Sift a quart of flour into a bowl or tray. Add half a teaspoon salt, then cut small into it a teacup of very cold lard.
2. Wet with cold water — ice water is best — into a very stiff dough.
3. Lay the dough on a floured block or marble slab and give one hundred strokes with a mallet or rolling pin. Fold it afresh as it beats thin, dredging in flour if it begins to stick. The purpose of beating is to distribute air well through the mass, which expands in the heat of baking and makes the biscuit light.
4. Work until the dough is firm, but smooth and very elastic.
5. Roll to half-inch thickness, cut out with a small round cutter, and prick lightly all over the top.
6. Bake in steady heat to a delicate brown. Too hot an oven will scorch and blister; too cold an oven will make the biscuit hard and clammy — aim for the middle between them.
7. Instead of beating by hand you may use one of the machines made for the purpose, or run the dough, after mixing, several times through a food-chopper.
8. Beaten biscuit can also be closely imitated by making good puff paste, then rolling, cutting out, pricking and baking — but rather more quickly than the real thing.