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Dessert

Plain Tea Biscuit

A simple biscuit made with flour, baking powder, shortening, optional sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Plain Tea 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  3. Add the shortening and mix until the mixture is crumbly.

Make and shape the dough

  1. If using water, add sugar; if using milk, omit sugar.

  2. Gradually add milk to form a soft, smooth dough.

  3. Roll out the dough to your desired thickness and cut into shapes.

Bake

  1. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or 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. 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).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the biscuit's body when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the biscuits rise and become light.
Shortening
Coats flour particles to tenderise the crumb and adds richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds browning through milk sugars.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Flour hydrates unevenly and gluten develops with working. Adding milk gradually and stopping once the dough is soft and smooth keeps the biscuits tender rather than 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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