Name: Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 1 cup milk or water; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 eggs; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Combine flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar in a bowl.
Melt the butter and beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
Add the melted butter and beaten eggs to the dry ingredients.
If the batter is sour, dissolve a little baking soda and stir it in.

Shape and bake

Knead the dough lightly and shape it into biscuits or rolls.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake immediately for best results.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the baked bread or biscuits together.
Baking soda: Reacts with acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Cream of tartar: Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the dough rise.
Milk or water: Hydrates the flour so the dough forms and develops gluten.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and moisture and help bind the dough.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after shaping. Baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting as soon as they are mixed with liquid. Delaying the bake lets the gas escape, so the rise is weaker.

“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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Bread—biscuits, Rolls, Muffins, Etc.