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Dessert

French Biscuit

A sweet biscuit made with butter, sugar, egg, sour milk, baking soda, and flour, rolled thin, cut, sprinkled with sugar, and baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

French Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg (or egg whites), sour milk, and baking soda, and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth, then roll it out thin.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into biscuits and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300 °F (150 °C) until dry and crisp.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the biscuits richness and a tender, short texture.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and tenderness, and sprinkled on top for a crisp finish.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the biscuits.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds a slight tang and tenderness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and stiff structure.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until dry and crisp. A low oven dries the biscuits through gently without browning them too fast. Baking too hot can scorch the outside while the centre stays soft, so bake until they are fully dry and crisp.

“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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