Name: Extra Soda Biscuit
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; 3 ounces shortening; 1 ounce baking powder; milk (enough to make a soft dough); ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Extra Soda 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

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

In a large bowl, mix the flour, shortening, baking powder, and salt.
Gradually add milk until a soft dough forms.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

Bake

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure once mixed with liquid and fat.
Shortening: Fat that keeps the biscuits tender by coating flour particles.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the oven, helping the biscuits rise.
Milk: Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds moisture.

“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.