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Dessert

Butter Biscuits

A simple biscuit made with butter, flour, milk or water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Butter Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cut the butter into the flour and add the salt.

  2. Wet the mixture with milk or water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Mix well with a knife.

  4. Flour a surface.

  5. Take the dough out onto the surface.

  6. Knead the dough well.

  7. Roll the dough into a thick sheet.

  8. Beat the sheet on both sides with a rolling pin.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut out small round thick cakes using a tin or cup.

  2. Beat each cake on both sides with the rolling pin.

  3. Prick each cake with a fork.

  4. Place the cakes in buttered pans.

  5. Bake until light brown in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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 + milktop 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Cut into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture and add richness.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough once wetted and kneaded.
Milk or cold water
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff dough.

The step that matters

Beat the sheet and cakes with the rolling pin. Beating the dough compresses and layers it, and pricking vents steam. Skipping these steps can leave biscuits dense or uneven as they bake.

“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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