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Dessert

Biscuit, Soda

A quick biscuit made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, 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 ↓

Biscuit, Soda

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk.

  2. Stir the cream of tartar into the flour.

  3. Sift the flour mixture together.

  4. Combine the flour mixture with the dissolved soda and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough quickly and bake immediately.

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the biscuits rise.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to leaven the dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the biscuits short.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the soda for even leavening.

The step that matters

Shape the dough quickly and bake immediately. Bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar begin releasing gas as soon as they meet moisture. Delay lets that gas escape before the oven sets the structure, so the biscuits rise less.

“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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