Biscuits

Ingredients:

1 quart fluor
1 level teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons butter or lard
Milk, or milk and water to mix (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups)

Sift well together the fluor, salt and baking powder.  Rub in the fat as lightly as possible with the fingers, just working it until the fat is wellblended with the fluor.  Then mix to a very soft dough with the milk, or milk and water, having this always as cold as possible.  Mix with a flexible knife in preference to either a spoon or the hand, as the steel blade of the knife is colder than the spoon, and also because it cuts and mixes the dough more throughly.  Turn the dough on to a well-fluored board, and roll or pat it with the hand until about three-quarters of an inch thick.  Cut into biscuit and lay them, not touchin each other, on a baking-pan.  Bake in quick oven twelve or fourteen minutes.

The chief requirements for a good biscuits are:
1 - a very soft dough, so soft as to be almost sticky.
2 - Very little handling, because much manipulation destroys their lightness.
3 - A very quick oven.
If biscuits are not allowed to touch each other in the pan they will be found to be lighter and more delicate than when they are placed close together.