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Dessert

Currant or Sultana Scones

Scones made with flour, cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda, salt, and currants or sultanas, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Currant or Sultana Scones

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour, cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda, and salt together to remove lumps.

  2. Pass the mixture through a coarse sieve three times to ensure thorough mixing.

  3. Add currants or sultanas to the flour mixture and combine well.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rounds and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°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 + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  3. Cream + curranttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,829 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with bicarbonate of soda to help the scones rise.
Bicarbonate of soda
Releases carbon dioxide gas with the acid in the dough, lifting the scones and aiding browning.
Currants or sultanas
Add sweetness and moisture, along with chewy bits of dried fruit throughout the scones.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a coarse sieve three times. Thorough mixing spreads the cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda evenly through the flour. Uneven distribution leaves pockets of acid or alkali, causing patchy rising and off flavours.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream. 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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