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Dessert

To Make Drop Biscuit

Drop biscuits made by beating eggs, flour, and sugar, then dropping onto tin sheets and baking briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

To Make Drop Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat eight eggs very light.

  2. Add twelve ounces of flour and one pound of sugar to the eggs.

  3. When the mixture is perfectly light, drop it onto tin sheets.

Bake

  1. Bake the biscuits in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Beaten until very light, they trap air that gives the biscuits lift and a light crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs until perfectly light. The air whipped into the eggs is the main source of rise in this batter, since there is no leavening listed. If the eggs are under-beaten, the biscuits will be dense and flat. Beat until the mixture is thick and pale before adding the flour and sugar.

“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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