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Dessert

Soda Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with sweet milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and shortening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Soda Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the sweet milk and shortening, and stir until combined.

  3. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into biscuits.

  2. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + creamtop 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).

Milk and flour 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 biscuits together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the biscuits rise.
Baking soda
Releases gas when combined with the acidic cream of tartar, lifting the dough.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and tenderness.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the biscuits soft.

The step that matters

Knead gently. Overworking biscuit dough develops gluten, making the biscuits tough rather than tender. Light handling keeps the texture flaky.

“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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