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Buttermilk Biscuit

A quick, flaky biscuit made with buttermilk, flour, baking soda, salt, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk 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 the dough

  1. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl.

  2. Add the lard (or lard and butter mixture) and mix well.

  3. Pour in the buttermilk and mix until the dough is stiff enough to knead.

Shape and bake

  1. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin.

  2. Puncture the top of each biscuit with a fork.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the biscuits their body.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the biscuits rise.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and moisture that binds the dough.
Lard
Fat that keeps the dough tender and flaky by coating flour particles.

The step that matters

Pour in the buttermilk and mix only until the dough is stiff enough to knead. Overmixing develops too much gluten, making the biscuits tough and dense rather than tender. Stopping at a shaggy, kneadable dough keeps the texture light.

“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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