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Dessert

Maple Biscuit

A sweet biscuit made with flour, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, eggs, wine, brandy, nutmeg, baking powder, milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Maple Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, eggs, wine, brandy, nutmeg, baking powder, and milk until well combined.

  2. Roll the dough out thin on a floured surface.

  3. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts with the liquids, helping the biscuits rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, and helps the biscuits brown.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Dough rolled too thick bakes unevenly, leaving the centre doughy while the edges over-brown. An even, thin roll with a light hand gives uniform texture and colour.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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