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Dessert

Maryland Biscuit

A biscuit made with lard, flour, salt, cream, and water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

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.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the lard into the flour until well combined.

  2. Add salt, cream, and enough water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Divide the dough into 2 parts and work each part until smooth and breaks off easily.

Shape and bake

  1. Break off small pieces and shape them into round cakes, then prick with a fork.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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

Lard
Fat that coats flour particles, keeping the biscuit tender and short.
Flour
Provides the protein and starch that form the structure of the biscuit.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a softer, richer crumb.

The step that matters

Working the dough until smooth. Working the dough develops gluten that helps hold the shapes together, but too much working makes biscuits tough, since a lard-rich dough should stay short and tender.

“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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