Name: Tavern Biscuits
Ingredients: 3 lbs. all-purpose flour; ½ lb. brown sugar; 1⅓ cups wine; 1 cup sweet cream; 1 lb. butter; 2 oz. allspice; ¼ oz. cinnamon or nutmeg or mace

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tavern Biscuits

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, wine, sweet cream, and butter until well combined.
Add the allspice and your choice of cinnamon, nutmeg, or mace.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut into biscuit shapes.
Place the biscuits on tin sheets and bake 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.

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.

Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and contributes richness and browning.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the biscuits brown.
Wine: Adds liquid to bind the dough and contributes acidity and flavour.
Sweet cream: Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the biscuits.
Allspice: Adds warm aromatic spice flavour to the dough.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, wine, cream, butter, cinnamon):

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits about as well
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, wine, cream, butter, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.