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Dessert

Buttermilk Biscuit

A quick baked biscuit made with buttermilk, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Buttermilk Biscuit

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 large bowl, combine the buttermilk and butter.

  2. Add the cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into biscuit shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that tenderizes the dough and reacts with the leavening.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the biscuits tender and helps them flake when baked.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide for rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk and cream of tartar to lift the biscuits.
Flour
Provides structure as its proteins form gluten, giving the biscuits their body.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out. Adding flour gradually lets you stop at the right stiffness. Too much flour, or overworking the dough, develops extra gluten and makes biscuits tough rather than tender.

“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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