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Dessert

Eiderdown Biscuits

Eiderdown biscuits are a buttery, lightly leavened biscuit made with pastry flour, lard, egg white, sweet milk, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Eiderdown Biscuits

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 the dough

  1. Combine flour, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Sift the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Rub the lard into the flour until fine.

  4. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  5. Stir in the sweet milk.

  6. Mix the milk and egg mixture into the flour with a spoon.

  7. Place the dough on a floured surface.

  8. Work lightly until smooth enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Spread half with melted butter.

  3. Fold the other side over.

  4. Prick the folded dough with a fork.

  5. Cut with a small biscuit cutter.

  6. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 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. 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

Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to produce gas that helps the biscuits rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to leaven the dough.
Lard
Shortens the flour, tenderising the biscuits and keeping them flaky.
Egg white
Beaten to stiffness, it adds lightness and helps the biscuits rise.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds moisture to the biscuits.

The step that matters

Mix the milk and egg white into the flour lightly. Overworking the dough develops gluten and makes biscuits tough, while a light hand keeps the beaten egg white's air and the leavening gas in the dough so the biscuits rise 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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