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Baking Powder Biscuits

A simple biscuit dough made with flour, baking powder, salt, butter or lard, and milk or water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Baking Powder Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour before measuring.

  2. Add the salt and baking powder, and mix well.

  3. Work in the butter or lard with your fingertips until the mixture resembles meal.

  4. Add enough milk or water to form a soft dough and mix with a spoon.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll or pat it into a sheet ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut with a biscuit cutter and bake for 12 to 15 minutes in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Do not knead the biscuits and do not let them stand before baking.

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. Flour + buttertop 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).

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
Forms the structure of the biscuit as its proteins and starch set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when moistened and heated, lifting the dough so the biscuits rise.
Butter or lard
Coats flour particles and melts during baking, creating flaky layers and tenderness.
Milk or water
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough that holds together when shaped.

The step that matters

Do not knead, and bake without delay. Overworking the dough develops gluten and makes biscuits tough. Letting the dough stand lets the baking powder lose gas before baking, reducing 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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