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Baking

Light Tea Biscuit

A light, soft dough biscuit made with flour, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Light Tea 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, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Gradually add sweet milk until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create tender layers and a rich, flaky texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the biscuits rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, leavening the dough and lightening its crumb.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds moisture to the biscuits.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Butter left in pea-sized or larger pieces melts during baking and creates steam pockets, producing flaky layers. If the butter is fully blended into the flour, the biscuits turn out denser and less tender.

“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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