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Dessert

Tea Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with flour, baking powder, salt, shortening, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tea Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Mix the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

  3. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough quickly on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into small shapes and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, making the biscuits rise and become light.
Shortening
Coats flour particles so the biscuits turn out tender and flaky.
Milk
Moistens the flour so it binds into a soft, cohesive dough.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough quickly on a floured surface.. Handling and rolling develop gluten and warm the shortening, which makes biscuits tough. Working fast keeps the dough tender and the fat cold.

“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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