Skip to main content
Main

Easter Biscuit

A fried biscuit made with eggs, buttermilk, butter, baking soda, flour, lard, and served with maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Easter Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then mix in the buttermilk, melted butter, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is rather hard.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the dough into oblongs and make two lengthwise cuts down the centers.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the oblongs until golden brown.

  3. Drain the fried biscuits on paper towels and serve with maple syrup.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + maple syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the biscuits.
Buttermilk or sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body.
Lard
Conducts heat in frying and gives the biscuits a golden, crisp surface.

The step that matters

Frying the oblongs. The lard must be hot enough before the dough goes in. Cold fat lets the biscuits soak up oil and turn greasy instead of browning crisply. Frying too hot can brown the outside before the centre cooks through.

“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.

You might also like

Maple SauceMaple Sauce9 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes