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Dessert

Tea Biscuits

A simple biscuit made with flour, butter, cream of tartar, salt, bicarbonate of soda, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tea Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a little milk and stir it into the flour and butter mixture.

  3. Add more milk to form a rather soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into cakes.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the biscuits once mixed with liquid.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, tenderness and a crumbly texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidic powder that reacts with bicarbonate of soda to help the biscuits rise.
Bicarbonate of soda
Releases carbon dioxide when combined with acid, helping the biscuits rise.
Milk
Provides moisture to bring the dough together and dissolves the bicarbonate of soda.

The step that matters

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a little milk and stir it into the flour and butter mixture.. Bicarbonate of soda must be evenly dispersed so it reacts with the cream of tartar throughout the dough. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of soda that can taste bitter and rise unevenly.

“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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