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Dessert

Maryland Biscuit

A simple biscuit made with flour, shortening, cream of tartar, baking soda, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Maryland Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Add water gradually to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into biscuits.

  2. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or 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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the biscuits their structure.
Shortening
Cut into the flour to create fat pockets that make the biscuits tender and flaky.
Cream of tartar
Acidic component that reacts with baking soda to help the biscuits rise.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when combined with the acid, leavening the dough and helping it rise.

The step that matters

Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Leaving the fat in distinct small pieces creates layers that steam apart in the oven, producing flakiness. Overworking or melting the fat makes the biscuits dense and 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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