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Sour Milk Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with sour milk, flour, butter, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Sour Milk Biscuit

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 ↓

Sour Milk 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. In a large bowl, combine the sifted flour, butter, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  3. Stir the sour milk mixture into the flour mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough quickly and roll it out to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut out biscuits using a biscuit cutter.

  3. Bake immediately in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sifted flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
Butter
Creates flaky layers and tenderness by separating the dough into pieces.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the biscuits rise.

The step that matters

Knead the dough quickly. Overworking wheat flour dough develops gluten, which makes biscuits tough. Brief handling keeps them tender, and baking immediately keeps the carbon dioxide from the baking soda reaction working in the oven rather than escaping.

“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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