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 ↓
Port Hope Biscuits
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and butter until creamy.
Add the milk, cream of tartar, and baking soda; mix well.
Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.
Sprinkle with nutmeg before baking.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the biscuits and helps them brown lightly as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creams with the sugar to lighten the dough.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the flour hydrates into a workable dough.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help the biscuits rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lightens the biscuits.
The step that matters
Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes quickly and evenly, so the biscuits turn crisp rather than thick and soft. Thick pieces can stay raw in the middle while the edges over-brown.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour):
- Nutmegthe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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