Name: Baking Powder Biscuit
Ingredients: 1 cup flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup milk

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 Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Mix and sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Cut in the butter until well combined.
Add the milk and mix gently with a knife, being careful not to overwork the dough.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 1 minute.
Roll the dough to ½ inch thick.

Shape and bake

Cut with a floured cutter and place in a lightly floured pan.
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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 structure that holds the biscuit's shape as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, lifting the dough so the biscuits rise.
Butter: Melts during baking, creating flaky layers and a tender crumb.
Milk: Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and browning.