Skip to main content
Main

Raised Biscuit

A yeast‑raised biscuit made with milk, lard, sugar, salt, yeast, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Raised Biscuit

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Raised Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Melt the lard in a saucepan over low heat with the milk.

  2. Once melted, add the sugar and salt, then set aside to cool until lukewarm.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in a little water and add it to the milk mixture along with a small pinch of baking soda.

  4. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough, then knead well with your hands.

  5. Place the dough in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

  6. In the morning, knead the dough down and let it rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. When light, mold the dough into biscuits and let them rise once more.

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

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Bread flour
Forms the stiff dough structure that holds the gas produced by the yeast.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, causing the dough to rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives the biscuits a rich texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture and proteins that help build a soft dough and brown in the oven.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and browning in the baked biscuits.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for the dough to double. Shaping or baking before it is light yields dense biscuits, since the gas network has not yet formed.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes