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Dessert

Sour Cream Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with sour cream, flour, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sour Cream Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour, salt, and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

  2. Quickly stir in enough sour cream to make a fairly soft dough.

  3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly for a moment.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to about ¾ inch thick, cut out biscuits, and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Winter wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuits together as they rise.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lifts the biscuits.
Thick sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderising the dough and activating the bicarbonate of soda.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour cream quickly. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which toughens the biscuits. Stirring just until the dough comes together keeps them tender and 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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