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Dessert

Cheese Biscuits

Cheese biscuits made with grated cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, flour, mustard, cayenne, and white pepper, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Mix all the ingredients together and let them stand for 1 hour.

Shape

  1. Knead the mixture and roll it out as thin as possible.

  2. Cut into triangles or roll into thin sticks about 3 inches long.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 16 to 18 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 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

Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and fat, and melts to bind the biscuits.
Breadcrumbs
Adds bulk and a light crumb structure to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, crisp texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough together and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Helps the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough dries and crisps through in the oven. Thick pieces stay soft in the centre and may not brown evenly, so roll as evenly and thinly as you can.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, egg, flour, mustard, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, egg, flour, mustard, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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