Name: Graham Biscuits
Ingredients: 3 cups Graham flour; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 3 cups milk; 2 tablespoons lard; 1 heaping tablespoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Graham Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Mix and bake

In a large bowl, mix together the Graham flour, all-purpose flour, milk, lard, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar until well combined.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.
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.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Graham flour: Provides the wheat bran and whole-grain body that gives these biscuits their hearty texture.
All-purpose flour: Adds gluten structure so the biscuits hold their shape and stay tender.
Milk: Hydrates the flours and adds moisture and browning from milk sugars.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a flaky, short texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas, helping the biscuits rise.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda, producing lift and a lighter crumb.

“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.