Plain Dessert or Wine Biscuits, and Ginger Biscuits

Instructions

1. For the plain dessert or wine biscuits: rub very small indeed two ounces of fresh butter into a pound of flour, and make it into a stiff paste with new milk.
2. Roll it out half an inch thick, and cut the biscuits with a round cutter the size of half-a-crown.
3. Pile them one on the other until all are done; then roll them out very thin, prick them, and lay them on lightly-floured tins, the pricked side downwards.
4. A few minutes will bake them, in a moderate oven. They should be very crisp, and but slightly browned.
5. For the Ginger Biscuits: three ounces of good butter with two pounds of flour; then add three ounces of pounded sugar and two of ginger in fine powder, and knead them into a stiff paste with new milk.
6. Roll it thin, stamp out the biscuits with a cutter, and bake them in a slow oven until they are crisp quite through, but keep them of a pale colour.
7. A couple of eggs are sometimes mixed with the milk for them, but are no material improvement; an additional ounce of sugar may be used when a sweeter biscuit is liked.
8. Proportions, plain biscuits: flour 1 lb.; butter, 2 oz.; new milk about 1/2 pint.
9. Proportions, ginger biscuits: flour, 2 lbs.; butter, 3 oz.; sugar, 3 oz.; ginger, 2 oz.