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Dessert

The Bakers Guide

A biscuit made from granulated wheat-meal, butter, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Blandy, John · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

The Bakers Guide

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Measure 2 lbs of granulated wheat-meal.

  2. Measure 1 egg.

  3. Measure J lb of butter.

  4. Measure 2 ozs of sugar.

  5. Measure enough carbonate of soda and cream of tartar, each to cover a sixpenny piece.

  6. Measure a pint of milk.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter, flour, soda, and acid together well.

  2. Make a bay (dough).

  3. Pour in milk, sugar, and eggs.

  4. Mix well to make a firm, smooth dough.

  5. Break the dough into two or more pieces for convenient rolling.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out each piece as thin as possible.

  2. Cut out biscuits.

  3. Put biscuits onto greased tins.

  4. Bake until crisp in a sound oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

336Calories
15 gProtein
25 gFat
13 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

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

By Blandy, John. 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. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wheat-meal (in the method)
Forms the main structure of the dough that holds the biscuits together.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour hydrates into a workable dough.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown as they bake.
Carbonate of soda and cream of tartar (in the method)
React together to produce gas that lightens the biscuits.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Rolling each piece as thin as possible matters because thin dough bakes evenly and dries to a crisp texture, while thick pieces stay soft in the middle.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Cocoafits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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