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Good Cream of Tartar Biscuits

Biscuits leavened with cream of tartar and baking soda, made with sweet milk and lard or butter.

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

Good Cream of Tartar Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sift 2 cups of flour with the cream of tartar two or three times.

  2. Sift the remaining flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the center.

Make the dough

  1. Add the flour with the cream of tartar, lard, salt, and baking soda dissolved in a little warm water, then mix well.

  2. Gradually add the milk until fully incorporated.

  3. Do not knead more than necessary.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut into shapes.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits' shape as they bake.
Lard or butter
Coats flour particles to tenderize the crumb and help create flaky layers.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and binds the dough together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the biscuits.
Cream of tartar
Acts as the acid that activates the baking soda for rising.

The step that matters

Do not knead more than necessary. Kneading develops gluten, the elastic protein network in flour. Overworked dough becomes tough and dense, so mix only until the milk is fully incorporated and handle the dough gently.

“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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