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Cream Biscuits

A quick biscuit made with flour, lard, salt, sour cream, baking soda, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Biscuits

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 ↓

Cream Biscuits

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, lard, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix sour cream with baking soda.

  3. Pour the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture.

  4. Add enough sweet milk to form a dough that can be handled.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick, cut into biscuits.

  2. Bake in the hot oven 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the biscuits tender and helps them separate into flaky layers.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that give the biscuits a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the biscuits rise.

The step that matters

Pour the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas, so the sour cream must be combined with it before baking. Working the dough gently after this keeps the biscuits tender rather than tough.

“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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