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Dessert

Cream-tartar Biscuit

A simple biscuit made with flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream-tartar Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar in a bowl.

  2. Add milk and stir thoroughly until the mixture fizzes.

  3. Dredge a clean surface with flour and turn the dough onto it.

  4. Quickly shape the dough into a ball without kneading.

  5. Roll the dough into a sheet about 1 inch thick.

Cut and bake

  1. Cut into rounds using a small biscuit cutter.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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's shape as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidic component that reacts with baking soda to produce gas for rising.
Baking soda
Alkaline component that reacts with the acid to leaven the dough.
Milk
Provides moisture to hydrate the flour and dissolve the leavening reaction.

The step that matters

Quickly shape the dough without kneading. Once liquid meets the acid and alkali, gas forms right away and starts to escape. Kneading or delay wastes that lift and toughens the gluten, leaving a dense biscuit.

“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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