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Dessert

York Biscuits

York biscuits are small, buttery biscuits made with flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, and carbonate of ammonia.

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 ↓

York Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the butter in the milk.

  2. Add the dissolved butter to the flour, sugar, egg, and ammonia.

  3. Sift the ammonia with the flour before mixing.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut into fingers 1 inch wide and 3 inches long.

  3. Brush with egg or leave plain.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main structure of the dough as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that shortens gluten strands, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the biscuits brown evenly in the oven.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness, and brushing it on helps browning.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the dough workable.
Carbonate of ammonia
Releases gas when heated, leavening the biscuits so they rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Sift the ammonia with the flour before mixing. Carbonate of ammonia releases gas as it heats. If it is not evenly distributed through the flour, it can leave pockets of uneven rising and patchy texture.

“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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