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
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, milk, hot mashed potatoes, yeast, and eggs.
Add enough flour to create a good batter and let it rise.
Once risen, add more flour until it can be stirred in with a spoon.
Shape and bake
Let it rise again, then roll out to ½ inch thick.
Cut into small round cakes, place two together, and bake when light.
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.
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape.
- Hot mashed potatoes
- Add moisture and softness to the dough.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.
The step that matters
Adding flour in stages. Flour must be added gradually until the dough is a workable batter. Too much flour at once makes the dough stiff, which slows rising and yields a dense, heavy texture.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour):
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, 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.
More potato biscuit recipes
You might also like
Deep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.