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Baking Powder Biscuits

A quick biscuit made with flour, salt, baking powder, lard, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baking Powder Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Chop in the lard and butter with a knife.

  3. Gradually add the milk to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough very gently.

  2. Cut into small rounds.

  3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heated dough, making the biscuits rise and turn light.
Lard
Coats flour particles and melts in the oven, leaving pockets that make the biscuits flaky.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and tenderness, and helps create flaky layers as it melts.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Knead the dough very gently. Working gluten in the flour too much makes biscuits tough and dense. Light handling keeps the layers tender and lets the biscuits rise well.

“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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