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Biscuits Made with Sour Milk

Biscuits made with sour milk, flour, soda, salt, butter, and optional cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Biscuits Made with Sour Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the soda and the salt with the flour, and sift them several times so they will be thoroughly mixed.

  2. Rub in the butter evenly.

  3. Stir in lightly with a fork enough sour milk to make a dough just stiff enough to roll.

  4. The dough can be left very soft if the board is well floured and the rolling-pin is used very lightly, patting the dough rather than rolling it.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll it out quickly an inch thick.

  2. Cut it into small rounds.

  3. The dough can be rolled half an inch thick, and two rounds placed together with a small bit of butter between.

  4. They are then called twin biscuits.

  5. Bake in a quick oven twenty to thirty minutes.

Variation

  1. These biscuits may be made of sweet milk, in which case two rounding teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar must be used with the soda and mixed with the flour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

657Calories
14 gProtein
18 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Mary Ronald. 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 of the biscuits once mixed with liquid and fat.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the biscuits.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make the biscuits tender and flaky.
Sour milk (in the method)
Provides moisture to form the dough and its acid activates the soda.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid to react with the soda when sweet milk is used instead.

The step that matters

Stirring in the sour milk lightly. Overworking the dough develops gluten and makes biscuits tough. Mixing only until the dough just holds together keeps them tender, and the soda must be well mixed in so it reacts evenly.

“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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