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Dessert

Cream Tartar Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with flour, butter, milk, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream Tartar Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and salt.

Make the dough

  1. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the milk.

  2. Add the milk mixture and softened butter to the flour mixture.

  3. Mix until a dough forms, then roll out on a floured surface.

Bake

  1. Cut the dough into biscuit shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 biscuits as the dough sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to lift the biscuits.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to flavor and browning.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps the dough come together.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before adding it to the milk. Undissolved baking soda leaves pockets that taste bitter and rise unevenly. Even dispersal lets the soda react with the cream of tartar throughout the dough, giving a uniform 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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