Get the App

Recipes

Find a Recipe Blue Ribbon Recipes Pinch It!™ Feed Browse All Recipes

Editorial

Food Bites & Articles Videos What is a Blue Ribbon? Meet the Test Kitchen

Community

Member Recipes Groups Sweepstakes Contests Shopping

great grandma's pioneer trail biscuits

(10 ratings)
colleenlucky7 avatar
Recipe by
Colleen Sowa
@colleenlucky7
La Crosse, WI

My Great-Grandmother Kennedy use to make these biscuits and passed the recipe down, it became modernized with the use of an indoor oven. My Grandmother Mabel Kennedy Sullivan use to make these for us and taught my mother and I to make them. Grandma Mabel is the one who switched to Crisco or Margarine... Margarine wasn't allowed to be sold in Wisconsin when I was a girl, my grandmother and I would travel with a friend to La Crescent, Minnesota to buy huge amounts of margarine and bring it into Wisconsin... I felt like a smuggler!!!

(10 ratings)
prep time 10 Min
cook time 20 Min
method Bake

Ingredients For great grandma's pioneer trail biscuits

  • 3 c
    flour
  • 2 1/2 Tbsp
    baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp
    ground nutmeg
  • 1 Tbsp
    salt
  • 3 Tbsp
    sugar
  • 1 c
    lard
  • 1 c
    buttermilk

How To Make great grandma's pioneer trail biscuits

  • 1
    Place all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cut in the lard, until mixture looks like meal. Stir in buttermilk. If dough is not pliable, add just enough buttermilk to make a soft, puffy dough that is easy to roll out. Knead dough on lightly floured board about one to two minutes or 25 to 30 times. Roll out dough to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut with floured biscuit cutter, or use a glass of the right size. Place on greased baking sheet. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes.
  • 2
    *** I don't use LARD. I use either Butter Flavored Crisco or Margarine. The Pioneers cooked them a bit differntly as there were no modern ovens on the trail... They made make-shift ovens that were sitting on coals of the campfire and more coals on top to get a hot oven effect. They also spent a lot of time baking as the ovens were small. They also sometimes made them in a skillet or a heavy pot with a lid (Dutch Oven)with coals under and about 12 - 15 on top.
  • Last Step: Don't forget to share! Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!

Categories & Tags for Great Grandma's Pioneer Trail Biscuits:

ADVERTISEMENT