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Graham Biscuits

A yeast-based biscuit made with white and Graham flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Graham Biscuits

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Graham 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine water or milk, butter, sugar, yeast, and salt.

  2. Add enough white flour to achieve a batter consistency.

  3. Stir in Graham flour until it can no longer be mixed with a spoon.

  4. Cover and let the mixture sit overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. The next morning, grease a baking pan and flour your hands.

  2. Take a lump of dough the size of a large egg and roll it lightly between your palms.

  3. Let the biscuits rise for 20 minutes.

  4. Bake in a hot 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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Yeast
Ferments the dough so the biscuits rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the finished biscuits.
White flour
Provides gluten structure so the dough holds its shape and rises.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty, coarser texture and wholesome flavor to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a mild sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Stir in Graham flour until it can no longer be mixed with a spoon. Adding flour too quickly or too little changes the dough's texture. Stopping at the right point gives a batter that can ferment overnight. Bran in Graham flour absorbs water slowly, so the dough thickens as it rests.

“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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