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Buttermilk Biscuit

A quick oven biscuit made with flour, baking soda, salt, lard, and buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Biscuit

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.

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour with baking soda and salt.

  2. Rub the lard into the flour.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease a baking pan.

Mix and bake

  1. Quickly mix the prepared flour with buttermilk.

  2. Shape the biscuits and bake them in the hot oven.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to produce gas that makes the biscuits rise.
Lard
Coats flour particles so the dough stays tender and flaky rather than tough.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Quickly mix the prepared flour with buttermilk.. Once liquid meets flour, gluten begins to form, and overmixing makes the biscuits tough. Mixing briefly keeps the crumb tender while the baking soda is still releasing gas.

“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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