Name: Cream of Tartar Biscuits
Ingredients: 1 quart of flour; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 4 teaspoons cream of tartar; a little salt; ½ cup butter or other shortening; water or sweet milk as needed

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 ↓

Cream of Tartar Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the dough

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
Rub in the butter or shortening until well combined.
Add enough water or sweet milk to form a dough.
Knead the dough as little as possible.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and bake quickly.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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: Provides the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the biscuits rise.
Cream of tartar: Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda, helping the biscuits rise and giving a slight tang.
Butter or shortening: Coats flour particles and adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.

The step that matters

Knead the dough as little as possible. Working wheat flour dough develops gluten, and too much kneading makes biscuits tough and dense instead of tender and flaky.

“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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Cream of Tartar Biscuits