Soda Biscuit (Old Style)

Ingredients

• 1 quart flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• salt
• lard or butter
• sour milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions

1. Sift the flour together with the baking soda. Add a good pinch of salt. Rub in the lard or butter (about the size of a fist) until well combined. Wet with sour milk to form a moderately soft dough.
2. For standard biscuits: Roll out the dough, working quickly. Cut with a small round cutter. Set in hot pans, leaving room for them to swell. Bake in a quick oven just below scorching heat. Handle as lightly as possible throughout—this makes flaky biscuit.
3. For a variation: Roll out thin, less than half an inch thick. Cut with a three-inch cutter. Grease lightly on top and fold along the middle. Let rise on top of a hot stove several minutes before baking. By adding a beaten egg and a heaping tablespoon of sugar to the dough during mixing, these doubled biscuits will be quite unlike the usual sort.