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Maryland Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with lard, butter, flour, salt, and water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Maryland 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. Cut the lard and butter into small pieces.

  2. Combine with the flour and salt in a bowl.

  3. Add enough water to form a stiff dough.

  4. Beat the dough lightly with a rolling pin until it breaks off easily.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into small cakes and prick with a fork.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Lard
Shortens the dough, keeping it tender and flaky by coating flour particles with fat.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and its cold pieces help create flaky layers as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together once water is added.

The step that matters

Beat the dough lightly with a rolling pin. Light beating folds and layers the dough without overworking it. Overworking develops too much gluten, which makes the biscuits tough rather than flaky.

“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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