Skip to main content
Main

Baking Powder Biscuits

A quick biscuit made with flour, salt, baking powder, lard or butter, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baking Powder Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix and sift the dry ingredients.

  2. Rub in the lard or butter.

  3. Gradually add the milk or water, mixing with a knife or spatula.

  4. Handle the dough lightly and add only enough liquid to make a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and roll or pat to 1 inch thickness.

  2. Cut with a biscuit cutter dipped in flour.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 12 to 15 minutes.

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. 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 main structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the biscuits rise and become light.
Lard or butter
Coats flour particles and creates flaky layers by keeping pockets of fat separate.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds moisture and browning.

The step that matters

Handle the dough lightly and add only enough liquid to make a soft dough.. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, making the biscuits tough and dense. Too much liquid makes the dough sticky and weakens the rise, so mix just until the dough holds together.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes