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Dessert

Iced Biscuits

Iced biscuits are small baked biscuits topped with white, pink, or chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Iced Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the biscuit batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and add sugar and milk.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, adding flavoring to taste.

Bake and cut

  1. Pour the batter into biscuit pans and bake until light.

  2. Once cooled, cut into slices 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

Ice and serve

  1. Ice the sides, ends, and top with white, pink, and chocolate icing.

  2. Dry in the oven, and optionally ice the bottom.

  3. Stack the biscuits in square blocks and serve on a plate.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the batter, giving the biscuits a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the biscuits as it sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the biscuits rise and turn light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown lightly in the oven.
White icing
Forms a sweet coating over the sides, ends, and top of the biscuits.

The step that matters

Bake until light. Baking must be stopped once the batter has risen and turned light; overbaking dries the crumb and makes the biscuits hard and brittle, while underbaking leaves them gummy and unable to hold their cut shape.

“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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