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Dessert

Southern Biscuit

A quick baked biscuit made with winter wheat flour, lard, buttermilk, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Southern Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together.

  2. Rub in the lard until well combined.

  3. Add buttermilk gradually to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttermilktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Winter wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the biscuits.
Lard
Coats flour particles and shortens gluten strands, giving a tender, flaky crumb.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture to form the dough and its acidity activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Add buttermilk gradually to form a stiff dough. Adding liquid slowly lets you stop once the dough just holds together. Too much liquid or excess kneading develops gluten, which makes biscuits tough and dense.

“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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