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Dessert

Tea Biscuit

A yeast‑leavened biscuit made with flour, butter, milk, yeast, and salt, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tea Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Melt a quarter of a pound of fresh butter in a quart of warm milk.

  2. Add a salt-spoonful of salt to the melted butter and milk.

  3. Sift two pounds of flour into a pan.

  4. Make a hole in the centre of the flour.

  5. Put in three tablespoonfuls of the best brewer's yeast.

  6. Add the milk and butter and mix it into a stiff paste.

Rise and knead

  1. Cover the dough and set it by the fire to rise.

  2. When quite light, knead the dough well.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out an inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into round cakes with the edge of a tumbler.

  3. Prick the top of each cake with a fork.

  4. Lay the cakes in buttered pans and bake them light brown.

  5. Send the cakes to the table warm.

  6. Split and butter the cakes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

706Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
107 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
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 Eliza Leslie. 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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 of the dough once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Provides the moisture that brings the flour into a dough.
Brewer's yeast
Produces gas as it works, which makes the dough rise and become light.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until quite light before kneading. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Kneading too early leaves it dense, while letting it over-rise can weaken its structure.

“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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