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Potato Biscuit

A yeast‑leavened biscuit made from mashed potatoes, butter, egg, sweet milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Biscuit

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 ↓

Potato Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes with their skins on until tender.

  2. Remove the potatoes and drain them.

  3. Squeeze with a towel to ensure they are dry.

  4. Peel the potatoes.

  5. Mash them until free from lumps.

Make the dough

  1. Add the butter, egg, and sweet milk to the mashed potatoes.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Beat in the yeast.

  4. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

  5. Allow the dough to rise.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape it into small cakes.

  2. Let the cakes rise again.

  3. Bake 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.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + flourtop 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the biscuits a soft, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the dough together.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softens the dough.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the dough its stiff body.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mashed potato mixture must be cool enough before it is added, or the dough will fail to rise.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, flour. 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.

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