Tag Archives: flour

Butter Biscuits – 1798

Thoughts:

True to their name, these are quite buttery. More what we might think of as modern rolls rather than biscuits, they are simple and wholesome, stopping just shy of fluffy. Because they are so simple, they are a perfect vehicle for your choice of condiments, including jam, clotted cream, or honey on the comb.

Colonial Butter Biscuits Recipe

Quarter Recipe Yield: 10 small biscuits

Sponge: overnight       Prep: 10 minutes       Baking: 25-30 minutes


Ingredients:

              Full Batch                   Half Batch                Quarter Batch

  • 1 pint milk                  1 cup milk                  1/2 cup milk
  • 1 pint emptins          1 cup emptins           1/2 cup emptins (or sourdough starter)
  • flour                              flour                             1/2 cup flour
  • 1 lb. butter                 2 sticks butter          1 stick butter
  • another pint milk    1 cup milk                  1/2 cup milk
  • more flour                  flour                             2 cups flour, plus a bit more

Mix the half cup milk with the half cup emptins, along with a 1/2 cup flour to make a sponge. Cover loosely with a dish towel and let sit out overnight. In the morning, your sponge will be larger, bubbly, and, well… spongy. 

Melt 1 stick of butter into another half cup of milk, and let cool until it’s just warm; if too hot, it will kill the yeast in the sponge. Add to the sponge, and gradually mix in 2 cups flour. At this point, you should have a thick batter. Gently knead in additional flour until the whole mixture comes together into one cohesive mass that is soft but not sticky.

Tear off 8 pieces of equal size, and gently form into small rounds. You may either place these directly onto a baking sheet, or into the cups of a muffin pan.

Bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes, until the tops are just slightly golden, and the biscuits feel firm to the touch.

They are best served with jam, honey, or clotted cream.

Acorn Flour




“When an oak-tree is felled the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.”

-Thomas Carlisle, 1795-1881




Our Thoughts:

 The smell of boiling acorns is entirely unexpected.  From the bubbling pot, tendrils of  steam curl up, bearing the familiar oakey scents of brown sugar and vanilla that are found in some wines, compliments of the cask they were aged in. Together, absurdly, the boiling mixture smells like creme brulee.

The resulting flour also tastes sweeter than we anticipated, with a subtle nutty flavor.  It is very rich in protein, so a little goes a long way.  We began mixing some in with our oatcakes, and have been very happy with the result.

We had expected this post to be a grueling sort of undertaking, and were pleasantly surprised to find how straightforward it is.  It is a nice project to have going on the side while you prepare the real meal of the day.  We boiled and strained ours three times just to be sure we got rid of the bitter tannins, but two times probably would have been sufficient.

So, with relatively little work, acorn flour is a definite win in our book! How to Make It!