Above are pictures of a hand hewn dough trough that I purchased off EBay several years ago that was made in Bulgaria.

SIZE MEASUREMENTS

Length including handles - 25 inches, Width 10 5/8 inches, Inside depth 3 1/2 inches, total height 4 3/8 inches

The major hand tools that produced this dough trough was no doubt a couple sizes of long bladed hollowering adz (also spelled adze) and the final adz used appears to have a blade width of one inch.  There are YouTube videos showing how the dough troughs were made by hand without the benefit of power tools.

MEMORIES FROM THE PAST

What prompted me to purchase a dough trough several years ago was thinking back in my “Mind’s eye” of the wonderful buttermilk lard biscuits that my Grandma Coley made and served them up until around 1960 when arthritis was affecting her hands.  She then went to the canned biscuits which cannot even compare to a good home made buttermilk lard biscuit.  As far back as I can remember, I lived with my Grandma Coley and she was my Mother to me.  I have much information about her web published in my short story hyperlinked here:  Memories From The Past.

MY BRIDE'S BUTTERMILK LARD BISCUITS

My bride also makes some wonderful buttermilk lard biscuits and over the years we have eaten our share of them and my bride's buttermilk lard biscuits are off the chart too!  We don't eat them like we use to trying to hold down on some of the things that make one's waist line enlarge.....grin if you must.  Below is a pix of some of those wonderful buttermilk lard biscuits that my bride baked:  She used a biscuit cutter to make the biscuits uniform in size versus "choking" them off by hand like Grandma Coley did.

GRANDMA COLEY'S BUTTERMILK LARD BISCUITS

Grandma Coley didn't use any real measurements, instead she had a large elongated wooden bowl that was kept in her wooden flour bin on the back porch which would probably hold 50 pounds or more of all-purpose flour that was packaged in printed design cotton sacks of which the cloth was used to make clothing items such as dresses and shirts, etc., back during The Great Depression Era up until the 1970s.  The wooden bin had a large deep drawer that was on a pivot and would swing open forward resting against a stop whereby revealing its contents and you could sift the flour into the wooden bowl.  Grandma or myself would add a good amount of flour to the wooden bowl and bring it back into the kitchen and place it on the kitchen table.  She would rake out a depression in the center of the flour and add pure lard that was retrieved from a tin lard stand close by being about 3 gallons in size, whereas she would get at least 1/3 cup (guesstimate) and using one hand only, slowly began pulling flour from the side of the bowl into the center and kept mixing it by hand until she got it like she wanted it.  She then added buttermilk, baking powder and salt, don't remember any measurements and mixed it and pulled flour from the side of the bowl until it was the right consistency.  She then took the dough ball and placed it on the floured kitchen table and kneading it back and forth and flattened it out using a wood rolling pin.  She didn't use a biscuit cutter but "choked" off a piece of the dough between her thumb and first finger, rolled it in her hands and then placed it on the biscuit baking pan and flattened it out with the back of her fingers and knuckles.  I called those biscuits "Cat-head biscuits" because when baked those golden brown beauties were about the size of a cat's head and before 1960 she baked them in a cast iron wood stove.  Those were some of the best tasting biscuits I have ever eaten and I believe the wood stove was the "secret" ingredient that is missing from our modern gas and electric ovens; the additional flavor imparted by the hickory or oak wood used.  By the early to mid 1960s, Grandma was no longer baking home made biscuits due to health issues like arthritis in her knuckles and hands and using canned biscuits instead, but I sure do remember those fantastic biscuits she made.  Below pix of an antique wooden mixing bowl, but Grandma's bowl was much longer somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 inches in length whereas this one is less than 12 inches:

I attempted to locate Grandma Coley's dough bowl/trough many decades ago, but got several conflicting accounts from family members of who ended up with the dough bowl/trough and let the issue rest!

Also, the pure lard used back then was home produced as well from the hogs that were raised out back and I go into a little detail in the next sentence that has a hyperlink.  Coupled that with home made hot length dried sausage or hot sage sausage and local brown sugar cured ham, it didn't get any better than that.  Those days are long gone, but are still wonderful memories from the past!

In the near future, my bride and myself are going to make a batch of buttermilk lard biscuits using the hand hewn dough trough.  Currently, it is getting hard to find whole buttermilk and when I do, I will post some additional pictures on this web page using the dough trough.

Web page created by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 03-06-2023 and updated on 03-07-2023..

Bill aka  Mickey Porter February 15, 1999 and web published on 08-21-08

BISCUITS BAKED ON 03-07-2023

Above biscuits bake on 03-07-2023 and were outstanding.  It was a challenge due to our power going off at about 12:19 PM while the oven was heating up.  I brought our smaller emergency generator on line since I already had it out and finished doing annual routine maintenance on it.  The 4200 watt generator was about too small for running the oven and a few other things.

Murphy's Law never sleeps!

SEQUENCE PIXS TAKEN

For many decades, my bride used Red Band brand all-purpose flour which was discontinued in 2003.  White Lily and Southern Mills are a good brand of all-purpose flour to use in my humble opinion.

Cutting the lard into the seasoned flour.

Mixing the buttermilk with the flour mixture

Biscuit dough ready to be kneaded

Kneading the dough

I left out pix using the rolling pin to flatten the dough out, my bad!  Using biscuit cutter.

Panning the biscuits.  These biscuits are much larger than the ones she made years ago.  Could not find the smaller biscuit cutter.

Biscuits in the oven.

I brushed melted butter onto the biscuits when out of the oven!

The buttermilk lard biscuits were "off the chain good."

According to my bride, the dough trough is much larger than needed and will probably end up as a decor piece, but I wanted her to use it at least one time using her buttermilk lard biscuit recipe.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 03-07-2023.

LEAVING ON A SPIRITUAL NOTE