Biscuits, Beaten

Once a mainstay in southern homes, the labor intensive biscuit containing no leavening is now rarely served except at holidays, Kentucky Derby parties, and in restaurants. The smooth, crisp exterior is split horizontally, and the soft interior is filled with paper thin slices of country ham.

A dough of flour, salt, butter or lard, and milk or water is beaten by wood (rolling pin, mallet) or metal (axe, pestle). It is refolded after several poundings to capture air and form layers and can take from fifteen minutes to hours, or two hundred to a thousand hits. Invented late in the nineteenth century, the Biscuit Break, with either a ribbed wooden roller or two smooth metal rollers, worked like a clothes wringer pounding the dough. When the dough becomes silky and the blisters crack loudly, it is rolled out to one-third inch thick and cut with two-inch biscuit cutters or rolled into small balls. The tops are pricked by a fork or biscuit dock.