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Bread

Bread, Biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.

A simple batter for breads, biscuits, rolls, and muffins made with flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, butter, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Bread, Biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, melt the butter and beat the eggs.

  3. Add the melted butter and beaten eggs to the dry ingredients.

  4. Pour in the milk or water and mix until just combined.

  5. Let the batter rise overnight.

Bake

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

  2. Handle the batter quickly and place it in the oven immediately.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the batter rise and turn light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the baked crumb set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.

The step that matters

Handle the batter quickly and place it in the oven immediately. Once liquid meets the leavening, gas begins to escape. Delaying the bake lets the batter lose rise, so it should go into the hot oven right after mixing.

“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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