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Dessert

Butter Biscuit

A simple butter biscuit made from butter, flour, milk, and salt, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Butter Biscuit

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 ↓

Butter Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cut the butter into the flour and add the salt.

  2. Wet the mixture with milk or water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Mix well with a knife and knead the dough on a floured surface.

Shape the biscuits

  1. Roll out the dough into a thick sheet and beat it on both sides with a rolling pin.

  2. Cut out small, round cakes using a tin or cup.

  3. Beat each cake on both sides with a rolling pin and prick them with a fork.

Bake

  1. Place the cakes in buttered pans and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until light 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Butter
Coats the flour and adds richness and tenderness to the biscuit.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and bakes into the biscuit.
Milk or cold water
Hydrates the flour to form a stiff dough that binds the mixture together.

The step that matters

Beat each cake on both sides with a rolling pin and prick them with a fork.. Beating and pricking release air and limit uneven puffing, helping the biscuits bake flat and evenly.

“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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