Name: Aunt Fanny's Buttermilk Biscuit
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup sour milk; 2 handfuls flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; Graham flour (to thicken); 1 teaspoon melted butter

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 ↓

Aunt Fanny's Buttermilk Biscuit

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 the sweet milk, sour milk, and eggs in a bowl. Mix in the sugar.
Gradually add flour until a thick batter consistency is achieved.
Stir in the baking soda and salt. Add the melted butter.

Bake

Drop a tablespoon of batter onto a buttered baking pan for each biscuit. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 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

Sour milk: Reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the biscuits and adds tang.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to make the biscuits rise.
Eggs: Add structure and richness to the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour: Provides structure, thickening the batter into a set biscuit crumb.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the finished biscuit.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the sour milk, to react and release gas. Adding it without the batter being well mixed, or letting it sit too long before baking, can leave uneven rising and a bitter taste.

“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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Aunt Fanny's Buttermilk Biscuit