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Scotch Scones

A quick baked scone made with baking soda, butter or lard, sour milk, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scotch Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the baking soda and butter or lard in the warmed sour milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt.

  3. Pour the milk mixture into the flour and mix to form a stiff dough.

  4. Roll out the dough into a round cake, ½ inch thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Mark the dough into eight sections and bake on a griddle for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Split and butter the scones while hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas, so the scones rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and moistens the dough for a tender crumb.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the scones their structure.

The step that matters

Mix to a stiff dough. Overmixing develops too much gluten, making the scones tough, while underworking leaves dry pockets of flour. Mix just until the dough holds together.

“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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