Skip to main content
Dessert

Buttermilk Biscuit

A quick oven-baked biscuit made with all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, sour buttermilk, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Biscuit

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. Sift flour, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

  2. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Mix the dough

  1. Stir together melted butter and buttermilk.

  2. Pour the buttermilk mixture into a well in the flour.

  3. Mix quickly with minimal handling to avoid a stiff dough.

Bake

  1. Cut out biscuits and place them in the oven to bake.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 its proteins hydrate and set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the biscuits rise.
Sour buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.
Melted butter
Adds fat that shortens gluten strands, giving a tender crumb and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Mix quickly with minimal handling. Overworking the dough develops gluten, which makes biscuits tough and stiff. Handling it lightly keeps them tender and light.

“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.

You might also like

Buttermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes