Skip to main content
Dessert

Brown Scones

Brown scones made with whole meal, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, butter, buttermilk, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Brown Scones

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

  1. Mix all dry ingredients together.

  2. Rub in the butter until no lumps remain.

Make the dough

  1. Add buttermilk to form a rather soft dough.

  2. Turn the dough onto a floured board and work it as little as possible.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into shapes.

  2. Bake on a hot griddle for 4 minutes on each side or in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Whole meal flour
Adds a nutty flavour and a coarser, heartier crumb to the scones.
Flour
Provides the main structure that the dough's gluten builds around.
Bread soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and buttermilk to produce gas, helping the scones rise.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that reacts with the bread soda, releasing gas for lift.
Butter
Coats flour particles when rubbed in, giving a tender texture and richness.
Buttermilk
Moistens the flour to form the dough and adds acidity that aids rising.

The step that matters

Work the dough as little as possible. Handling and kneading develop gluten, which makes the dough elastic and the scones tough. Minimal handling keeps them light and tender.

“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

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes