Name: Picnic Biscuit
Ingredients: Raised Biscuit dough (see page 145); Stoned dates or chopped figs; Milk (for glazing)

Why it works: Biscuit and dates share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Picnic Biscuit

Ingredients

Raised Biscuit dough (see page 145)
Stoned dates or chopped figs
Milk (for glazing)

Directions

Prepare the Raised Biscuit dough and knead it thoroughly.
Divide the dough and roll each portion to about ¼ inch thick.
Spread one portion with stoned dates or finely chopped figs.
Cover with the second portion and cut into fancy shapes.
Let the biscuits rise until very light.
Wash the tops with milk before baking.
Bake 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.

Biscuit + datestop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Dates + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,332 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).