Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Potato Biscuit
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, milk, hot mashed potatoes, yeast, and eggs.
Add enough flour to create a good batter and let it rise.
Once risen, add more flour until it can be stirred with a spoon.
Let it rise again, then roll out to ½ inch thick.
Shape and bake
Cut into small round cakes, place two together, and bake when light.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Flour
- Builds the structure that holds the dough and sets as it bakes.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and turn light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and give it tenderness.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich flavor.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
- Hot mashed potatoes
- Add moisture and softness, keeping the biscuits tender.
The step that matters
Adding flour until the dough can be stirred with a spoon. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and dense, while too little leaves it slack and sticky. The dough must also rise fully before shaping so yeast gas can lighten the crumb.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour):
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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