Name: Cheese Biscuit
Ingredients: 4 ounces flour; 3 ounces butter; 1 yolk of egg; 3 tablespoons cream; 1 ounce grated Parmesan cheese; 3 tablespoons water; a pinch of cayenne pepper

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix flour, butter, egg yolk, cream, Parmesan cheese, water, and cayenne pepper until combined.
Form the mixture into a paste and roll it out to the thickness of a regular biscuit.
Cut the dough into desired shapes.

Bake

Place the biscuits in a paper bag, ensuring they do not touch each other.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,322 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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 that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the biscuit tender and rich in texture.
Egg yolk: Binds the dough and adds richness and color.
Parmesan cheese: Adds savory flavor and helps the biscuit brown as it bakes.

“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.