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Dessert

Maryland Biscuits

Maryland biscuits are a biscuit made with butter, lard, flour, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Maryland Biscuits

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, cream together butter and lard.

  2. Gradually add flour and salt, mixing until combined.

  3. Add water a little at a time until dough is smooth.

  4. Knead dough briefly on a floured surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out dough to desired thickness and cut into biscuits.

  2. Place biscuits on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and keeps the biscuits tender.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb tender and short.

The step that matters

Add water a little at a time until dough is smooth. Too much water or overworking the dough develops gluten, which makes biscuits tough. Adding water gradually lets you stop once the dough just comes together, keeping the biscuits light and 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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