Name: Graham Biscuit
Ingredients: 3 cups Graham flour; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 3 cups milk; 2 tablespoons lard; 1 heaping tablespoon white sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Graham 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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake

In a large bowl, mix the Graham flour, all-purpose flour, milk, lard, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar until well combined.
Spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

Serve

Serve warm.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Graham flour: Provides the main body and a coarse, hearty texture to the biscuit.
All-purpose flour: Adds structure and tenderness, balancing the coarser Graham flour.
Milk: Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
Lard: Adds fat that makes the biscuit tender and rich.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that helps it rise.
Cream of tartar: Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and helps the biscuit rise.

“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.