Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Soda Biscuits
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.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and dry cream of tartar.
Add the butter and rub it into the flour until crumbly.
Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add it to the mixture.
Gradually add more milk to form a soft dough.
Bake
Divide the dough into small cakes.
Bake immediately for 15 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Forms the structure that holds the biscuits together as they bake.
- Dry cream of tartar
- Acidic powder that reacts with baking soda to produce gas for rising.
- Baking soda
- Alkaline base that reacts with the acid to leaven the biscuits.
- Butter
- Fat rubbed into the flour, tenderizing the crumb and adding richness.
- Milk
- Dissolves the baking soda and hydrates the flour to form a soft dough.
The step that matters
Bake immediately after shaping. Baking soda and cream of tartar begin reacting as soon as they are mixed with liquid. Delaying the bake lets much of the gas escape, so the biscuits may rise less.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, butter, milk):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Hazelnutfits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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