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Quick Lunch Biscuit

A quick yeast biscuit made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, salt, and yeast, baked at 400°F.

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 ↓

Quick Lunch Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 110°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Heat the milk to just above body temperature (about 110°F).

  2. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk.

  3. Melt the butter in a mixing bowl over low heat.

  4. Add the milk mixture to the melted butter.

  5. Stir in the salt and flour until smooth.

  6. Flour your hands and the kneading board.

  7. Turn out the dough and form it into a large ball.

  8. Place the dough back in the bowl.

  9. Cover the dough with a pie tin.

  10. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 15 minutes.

Shape and rise

  1. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thickness.

  2. Cut the rolled dough into biscuits.

  3. Place the biscuits in a greased baking pan.

  4. Butter the sides of the biscuits to prevent sticking.

  5. Cover the biscuits with a pie tin or greased paper.

  6. Let the biscuits rise for 30 minutes over a pan of hot water.

Bake

  1. Bake the biscuits in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Active dry yeast
Ferments the sugar and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the biscuits their body.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer flavour and browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Heating the milk to just above body temperature. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, while cold liquid slows its activity. Warm milk around body temperature lets the yeast wake up and begin producing gas for rising.

“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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