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Soda Biscuit

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

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 ↓

Soda Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.

Mix and rest

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, dissolved baking soda, lard, and salt until combined.

  2. Let the dough rise for 15 to 20 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough and bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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).

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 biscuit together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the buttermilk to release gas, helping the biscuits rise.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps produce a flaky texture.

The step that matters

Mix the dough until just combined. Overworking flour after adding liquid develops gluten, which makes biscuits tough and dense. Stopping once the ingredients come together keeps them 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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