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Tkemokt Biscuit

A Boston-style biscuit made with milk, lard, sugar, yeast, flour, soda, and butter, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tkemokt Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Combine 1½ pints warm milk, 1 tbsp lard, 2 tbsp white sugar, a little salt, 1 yeast cake (Twin Bro.'s) or 1 cup homemade yeast or half a compressed yeast cake, and 2 quarts sifted flour. Make a hole in the flour and mix all ingredients to form a sponge.

  2. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise until quite light.

Shape and bake

  1. When risen, work in the remaining flour and set the dough to rise again.

  2. When well risen, work a little more, roll the dough out to about one‑third inch thick, and cut with a biscuit cutter.

  3. Moisten one edge of each biscuit with melted butter, then fold the biscuit in half like a roll.

  4. Place biscuits in a bread pan about one inch apart; set to rise for about half an hour in a warm place.

  5. When risen, bake in a quick oven for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on oven temperature.

Timing notes

  1. If making for tea, prepare around 10 a.m.; if for breakfast, prepare around 9 p.m. Add ½ tsp soda after the first rise if using compressed yeast.

  2. If using compressed yeast, allow about six hours total for rising.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

768Calories
21 gProtein
22 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 gluten structure that holds the risen dough and shaped biscuits.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the dough to add lift and affect browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time and warmth to build gas and gluten strength; under-rising leaves dense biscuits, while over-rising can collapse the structure and weaken the final rise.

“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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