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Dessert

Cheese Biscuits a LA Vincent

Cheese biscuits made with flour, butter, cheese, cayenne pepper, carmine, salt, and cream, baked until pale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Biscuits a LA Vincent

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix all ingredients together, including the carmine.

  3. Work into a stiff paste with a little cream.

  4. Roll the paste out to about ⅛ inch thickness.

Shape and bake

  1. Prick the dough with a fork or biscuit-pricker.

  2. Cut into pieces the size of a crown coin with a fluted cutter.

  3. Place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet.

  4. Bake until pale in color.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the biscuits as the base that holds the dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the biscuits rise and become lighter.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a rich, crumbly texture.
Grated dry cheese
Adds savory flavor and a little fat to the dough.

The step that matters

Bake until pale in color. Biscuits continue to darken quickly near the end of baking, so pulling them when just pale keeps them from over-browning and turning bitter. Watching color is the main guide because no time is given.

“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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