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Dessert

Short Biscuit

A biscuit made from raised dough and butter, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Short Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix and rise

  1. In a large bowl, combine 1 quart of raised dough with ¼ pound of melted butter.

  2. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise again without further working.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough carefully.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. For a shorter biscuit, add more butter.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Raised dough
Forms the main body of the biscuit and carries the rise through the bake.
Melted butter
Adds fat that coats the dough and makes the biscuit more tender and shorter.

The step that matters

Rise again without further working. Handling or kneading the dough again knocks out gas and develops gluten, which makes the biscuit tough instead of light. Let it rise undisturbed.

“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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