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 ↓
Sour Milk 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.
Make the dough
In a large bowl, combine the sifted flour and softened butter.
Add the salt and mix well.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and stir it into the flour mixture.
Knead the dough quickly until combined.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut out biscuits using a biscuit cutter.
Bake immediately in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to flakiness and flavor.
- Sour milk
- Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the biscuits rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas, leavening the biscuits.
The step that matters
Knead the dough quickly until combined. Overworking biscuit dough develops gluten, making the biscuits tough. Mixing only until combined keeps them tender. Also, the baking soda reacts with the sour milk as soon as they meet, so the dough should be baked promptly to keep the rise.
“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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