History of Biscuits

History of Biscuits

This is an extract from my beautiful 1960 edition of "New Larousse Gastronomique".

Biscuit is a term applied to many kinds of biscuit, and, in French to an iced sweet, made of ice cream mixture, cut to look like biscuits.

 Army Biscuits: These used to be make iof a fairly substantial paste (6 parts flour to 1 part water), baked for 20-25 minutes, cooled off until completely dry. Sometimes a little leaven was added to the paste,  and invariably some seasoning to give the dough some taste, the biscuits were difficult to chew, and were not much good in soups, as they did not absorb enough liquid when soaked.

After 1894, as a result of the work of the Army food chemist, Balland, biscuit was replaced by "Army Bread", which was porous and absorbant, though still not popular with soldiers.

My haven't we come a long way with baking in the late 1890's.

Next week's subject: Eggs

Sandra