Vintage 7Up Biscuit Recipe - Semi Homemade Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How did they make biscuits in the old days? ›

“… beaten biscuits are what people made in the days before baking soda and baking powder was around. In order to get the biscuits to rise, cooks would beat the dough with a mallet, rolling pin, or even an ax for over half an hour util it blistered.”

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

When the fat is cut too small, after baking there will be more, smaller air pockets left by the melting fat. The result is a baked product that crumbles. When cutting in shortening and other solid fats, cut only until the pieces of shortening are 1/8- to 1/4-inch in size.

With no leavening agents except the bitter-tasting pearlash available, beaten biscuits were laboriously beaten and folded to incorporate air into the dough which expanded when heated in the oven causing the biscuit to rise.

The Aberffraw biscuit (sometimes Aberffraw cake or Teisen Berffro) is said to originate from 13th century Anglesey. ​”Legend has it that a Welsh king was holding court in Aberffraw – his wife was walking on the beach there and, spotting a pretty scallop shell, asked for a cake to be baked in the same form.

White wheat in general is around 9-12% protein, while the hard reds are 11-15%. As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.

Biscuit recipes tend to be egg-free, this makes them drier and the lack of protein to bind the mix helps achieve that crumbly texture. For super light, crumbly biscuits try grating or pushing the yolks of hard-boiled eggs through a sieve into the biscuit dough.

SouthernKitchen.com says, "Ask any Southern chef or sagacious biscuit grandma and you'll hear a pattern emerge: they all swear by White Lily flour."

Rolled Oats (49%), Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Sustainable Palm), Sugar, Salt, Flavourings. For allergen information, including cereals containing gluten see ingredients in bold. May also contain Egg, Milk, Soya and Tree Nuts.

Should you chill biscuits before baking? ›

Place the pan of biscuits in the refrigerator while you preheat your oven to 425°F, or for about 20 to 30 minutes. This short chill will help the biscuits maintain their shape while baking.

Conclusion: More baking powder makes the biscuit rise more (imagine that!). About 1 tablespoon of baking powder per 2 cups of flour seems to be about the right amount, but even halving or doubling this amount should not ruin your biscuits.

Oven temperatures vary widely. To insure the correct temperature each time you bake, always use an oven thermometer. Biscuits, scones and shortcakes are done when they have risen high and are golden brown.

The Earliest Evidence

The Romans certainly had a form of biscuit, what we'd now call a rusk and, as the name suggests, it was essentially bread which was re-baked to make it crisp. It kept for longer than plain bread, and was useful for travellers and soldiers' rations.

What makes biscuits Southern? Besides being passed down by beloved grandmothers, Southern biscuits are typically made with flour made from soft red winter wheat, such as White Lily.

Britain's favourite snack began life in the ancient world when slices of bread were dried to store them. The Romans called these rusks panis bicoctus (bread twice-baked), and so the original method for making biscuits is embedded in their name.

Potassium Bicarbonate

Commonly used as a supplement, it has the same leavening power as baking soda but without the sodium. I've successfully used it one-for-one in all recipes.