Biscuit

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For other uses, see Biscuit (disambiguation).

A biscuit is a small baked bread or cake. The exact meaning varies markedly in different parts of the world, sometimes leading to confusion. The origin of the word "biscuit" is from Latin via Middle French and means "twice cooked".

[edit] Biscuits in North American usage

In American English, a "biscuit" is a small form of bread made with baking powder or baking soda as a leavening agent rather than yeast. (Biscuits, soda breads, and corn bread, among others, are sometimes referred to collectively as "quick breads" to indicate that they do not need time to rise before baking.)

Biscuits are extremely soft and similar to scones; in fact, many recipes are identical. In the United States, there is a growing tendency to refer to sweet variations as "scone" and to the savory as a "biscuit", though there are exceptions for both (such as the cheese scone). A sweet biscuit served with a topping of fruit and juice is called shortcake. In Canada, both sweet and savory are referred to as "biscuits", "baking powder biscuits" or "tea biscuits"; although "scone" is also starting to be used.

Biscuits are a common feature of Southern U.S. cuisine and are often made with buttermilk. They are traditionally served as a side dish with a meal, especially in the morning. As a breakfast item they are often eaten with butter and a sweet condiment such as molasses, light sugarcane syrup, sorghum syrup, honey, or fruit jam or jelly. With other meals they are usually eaten with butter or gravy instead of sweet condiments. However, biscuits and gravy (biscuits covered in "country-style" gravy) are usually served for breakfast, sometimes as the main course.

Rules of thumb when baking biscuits: 1) more flour leads to heavier biscuits, less flour leads to lighter biscuits. 2) higher baking temperature leads to crispier outsides, lower baking temperature leads to paler, softer crusts.^{[citation needed]}

A common variation on basic biscuits is "cheese biscuits", made by adding grated Cheddar or American cheese to the basic recipe.

Large drop biscuits, because of their size and rough exterior texture, are sometimes referred to as "cat head biscuits".

Biscuits are now ubiquitous throughout the U.S. and feature prominently in many fast food breakfast sandwiches. The biscuit sandwich burst onto the scene primarily through the Hardee's chain of restaurants as an answer to the McDonald's Egg McMuffin. Along with the traditional country ham, Hardee's added sausage, cheese, eggs, steak, and even chicken to the breakfast bread. Breakfast biscuits are much bigger than ham biscuits, most as big or bigger than a typical fast food hamburger. In addition, biscuits are commonly found as a side dish at fried chicken restaurants such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Bojangles', Church's Chicken, Chick-fil-A, & Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits.

[edit] Beaten biscuits

Beaten biscuits date from the 1800s [1] and are a Southern U.S. food. They differ from a regular biscuit in that they are more like hardtack instead of soft because the dough is beaten with a hard object or against a hard surface for at least a half hour. They are also pricked with a fork prior to baking and are usually smaller than a regular biscuit. These are the biscuits traditionally used in "ham biscuits", a traditional Southern canapé, which are simply tiny sandwiches of these bite-sized biscuits sliced horizontally, spread with butter or mustard, and filled with pieces of Smithfield ham.

Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book of 1896 gives a recipe for beaten biscuits but calls them "Maryland Biscuit". The ingredients are flour, lard, salt, and water and the recipe was provided by a "Southern Pupil".

[edit] Biscuits in British, Australian and New Zealand usage

Main article: Cookie

In other versions of English, and in many European languages, a biscuit is a hard baked product like a small flat cake which in North America may be called a "cookie" or "cracker". The term biscuit also applies to sandwich type biscuits, where a layer of 'cream' or icing is sandwiched between two biscuits. It should be noted, however, that it has become increasingly more common within the UK for "cookie" to be used to differentiate between the softer, more chewy "cookie" and the harder, more brittle "biscuit."^{[citation needed]} In this respect the British usage of the word biscuit was defined in the defense of a tax judgement found in favor of McVitie's and their product Jaffa Cakes which the Inland Revenue claimed was a biscuit and was therefore liable to value added tax. The successful defense rested on the fact that 'biscuits go soft when stale, whereas cakes go hard when stale.'

Although there are many regional varieties, both sweet and savory, "biscuit" is generally used to describe the sweet version. Sweet biscuits are commonly eaten as a snack and may contain chocolate, fruit, jam, nuts or even be used to sandwich other fillings. Savory biscuits, more often called crackers or crispbreads, are plainer and commonly eaten with cheese following a meal.

Generally, Australians use the British meaning of "biscuit" (colloquially referred to as 'bickie or biccie or bikkie) for the sweet biscuit. Two famous Australasian biscuit varieties are the Anzac biscuit and the Tim Tam.

Despite the difference, this sense is at the root of the United States' most prominent maker of cookies and crackers, the National Biscuit Company (now called Nabisco).