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Recipe for "biscuits-1"

NAME

     BISCUITS-1 - Simple, fluffy biscuits
     This originated in The Better Homes  and  Gardens  Cookbook,
     which  I  consider  basic equipment for genteel middle-class
     living. Here ``biscuits'' is the North American  meaning  of
     the  word  and  not the Commonwealth meaning of the word. In
     England these would be called ``scones.''

INGREDIENTS (makes 10-12)

     200 g     flour
     20 ml     baking powder
     10 ml     sugar
     2.5 ml    cream of tartar
     2.5 ml    salt
     100 g     shortening
     150 ml    milk

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Preheat oven to 230 deg.  C.   Stir  together  the
               flour,  baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, and
               salt.  Cut in the  shortening  until  the  mixture
               resembles coarse crumbs.
          (2)  Make a well in the center.  Pour in the  milk  all
               at once.
          (3)  Stir just until dough clings together; no more.
          (4)  Knead gently on a lightly floured surface for 10 -
               12 strokes.
          (5)  Roll or pat to 1-cm thickness.  Cut with a 6-cm
                biscuit cutter, dipping  the  cutter  into  flour
               before each cut.
          (6)  Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake in  a
               230  deg.  C oven for 10-12 minutes, or until gol-
               den.

NOTES

     Lots of cookbooks tell you to use two knives, or some  such,
     to do the cutting-in of the first step.  Forks work fine for
     me (I'm a klutz.)
     All of the trick to making light, fluffy biscuits is in  how
     you handle them: the less, the better. You can make these as
     drop biscuits (skip the rolling; drop batter by tablespoons,
     and bake); they're even better for the lack of handling.
     Outside North America you might not know  what  "shortening"
     is.  Use butter, margarine, copha, or lard.  Vegetable shor-
     tening really is better for this recipe,  but  don't  forget
     lots  of butter to put *on* them....  I make these for study
     breaks.  They disappear at an exponential rate....

RATING

     Difficulty: easy.  Time: 10 minutes preparation, 10  minutes
     baking.  Precision: measure the ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Jean Marie Diaz
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., USA
     Ambar@athena.mit.edu