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Baking Powder Biscuits

A quick biscuit made with baking powder, flour, milk, shortening, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Baking Powder Biscuits

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 the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt twice.

  3. Cut in the shortening using two knives.

Shape the biscuits

  1. Gradually add the milk and mix with a knife until combined.

  2. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead slightly.

  3. Roll the dough into a sheet about ½ inch thick.

  4. Cut into rounds and place in a shallow baking pan.

  5. Brush the tops with melted butter for a rich brown exterior, if desired.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 15 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cake flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the biscuit's shape and crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the dough so the biscuits rise and become light.
Shortening
Coats flour particles when cut in, creating layers and a tender, flaky texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds moisture and some browning from milk sugars.
Salt
Enhances flavor and balances the taste of the biscuits.

The step that matters

Cut in the shortening using two knives. Shortening should stay in small, distinct pieces rather than melting or fully blending into the flour. These pockets of fat create flaky layers as the biscuits bake, and overworking the dough makes them tough.

“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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