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Ham Sandwich Biscuit

A biscuit sandwich made with ham and butter, baked until golden.

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 ↓

Ham Sandwich 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.

Prepare the dough

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

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

  3. Rub 2 tablespoons of the fat into the flour mixture. Mix in the milk to form a dough.

  4. Roll out the dough rather thinly and cut into rounds.

Fill and bake

  1. Moisten the minced ham with the remaining tablespoon of melted fat.

  2. Spread the ham on half of the dough rounds. Cover with the other half of the rounds and press lightly together.

  3. Bake in the preheated 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.

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).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Ham + milktop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the biscuit dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the biscuits rise and become light.
Butter or lard
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the biscuits.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds moisture and browning.
Ham
Provides savoury flavour in the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling out the dough. Rolling the dough rather thinly and pressing the rounds together lightly helps the filling heat through and keeps the biscuits tender. Overworking the dough develops gluten, which makes biscuits 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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