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Dessert

Biscuit for Dyspeptics

A biscuit made with graham flour, cornmeal, butter, molasses, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Biscuit for Dyspeptics

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the graham flour and corn meal.

  2. Add the butter and mix until crumbly.

  3. Stir in the molasses and enough sour milk to form a dough.

  4. Add baking soda to taste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake until golden brown, then let cool before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Graham flour
Provides the main structure and a nutty, wholesome flavour in the biscuit.
Corn meal
Adds a coarser texture and a mild corn flavour to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the biscuit tender and crumbly rather than tough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep flavour, and helps the biscuit brown.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the biscuit rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the biscuit.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda to taste. Baking soda needs an acid, such as sour milk or molasses, to react and lift the dough. Too little leaves the biscuit dense, while too much can leave a bitter, soapy taste and a yellowish colour.

“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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