Skip to main content
Dessert

Raised Graham Biscuit

A raised biscuit made with wheat and Graham flour, leavened with yeast, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Raised Graham Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine milk or water, butter, sugar, and yeast mixture.

  2. Add enough wheat flour to create a thin batter, then stir in Graham flour until combined.

  3. Cover the bowl and let the mixture sit overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, butter a baking pan.

  2. With floured hands, tear off pieces of dough the size of an egg and roll them lightly.

  3. Place the dough balls in the pan and let them rise for 20 minutes.

  4. Bake 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.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour 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

Yeast
Produces gas that leavens the dough so the biscuits rise and turn light.
Wheat flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the thin batter structure and stretch.
Graham flour
Adds bran and whole-grain body, giving the biscuits a nutty, coarser texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its milk sugars help the crust brown.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the baked crust.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb and crust.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture sit overnight. The long slow fermentation lets yeast develop flavor and gas in the batter. Cutting it short leaves the dough flat and under-flavored.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat MuffinsWheat Muffins48 recipesWhole Wheat MuffinsWhole Wheat Muffins12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes