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Graham Biscuits, with Yeast

A yeast-leavened biscuit made with wheat and Graham flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Graham Biscuits, with Yeast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine water or milk, butter, sugar, yeast, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add enough wheat flour to achieve a batter-like consistency.

  3. Stir in Graham flour until it can no longer be mixed with a spoon.

  4. Cover and let the mixture sit overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, grease a pan and flour your hands.

  2. Take a lump of dough the size of an egg and roll it lightly between your palms.

  3. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Yeast
Ferments the dough so the biscuits rise and take on a light, airy texture.
Wheat flour
Forms the batter-like base that gives the dough its structure.
Graham flour
Stiffens the batter and adds a coarser, nutty texture to the biscuits.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the finished biscuits.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring in the Graham flour. Stop once the dough can no longer be mixed with a spoon, because too much flour makes the dough stiff and dense, limiting the rise the yeast can give.

“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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