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Dessert

Cream of Tartar and Soda Biscuits

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream of Tartar and Soda Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

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

Make the dough

  1. Add the lard and rub it in until the mixture is smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk (or milk and water) to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough, cut into shapes, and place on baking pans.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the biscuits rise.
Baking soda
Base that reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, lightening the texture.
Lard
Fat that coats flour particles, tenderizing the biscuits and keeping them short.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour into a soft dough and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Add the liquid gradually and mix only until a soft dough forms. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes biscuits tough rather than tender.

“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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