Skip to main content
Dessert

Soda Biscuit

A quick-baked biscuit made with flour, soda, milk, lard, butter, salt, and optional baking powder or sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Soda Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flour

  1. Take four teaspoons of cream tartar.

  2. Rub it well through two quarts of flour, one teaspoon of salt, and butter the size of a goose, also rubbed in the flour.

  3. Mix three heaping teaspoons of baking powder thoroughly.

  4. Add one quart of sifted flour.

  5. Add one large spoon of lard.

  6. Add one teaspoon of salt.

Make the dough

  1. Take three coffee-cups of sweet milk.

  2. Dissolve two teaspoons of soda in the milk and mix all together soft.

  3. Add cold water or sweet milk enough to mix soft.

  4. Be careful not to work more than necessary in mixing the ingredients together.

Bake

  1. Bake in a quick oven.

  2. Bake in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

921Calories
22 gProtein
39 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Goosenot 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 Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the biscuit rise.
Soda
Reacts with acid in the milk to produce gas for rising and light texture.
Cream tartar
Provides acid that reacts with soda to help the biscuit rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and binds the dough.

The step that matters

Avoid overworking the dough. Mixing too much develops gluten, making the biscuit tough and dense rather than tender. Mix only until the dough just comes together.

“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

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes