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Dessert

Potato Scones

A baked scone made with mashed potatoes, graham flour, butter, eggs, cream, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the peeled potatoes until very well done.

  2. Drain the water and set the potatoes by the fire to dry.

Make the dough

  1. Mash the potatoes smooth, adding the butter, eggs, and cream.

  2. Mix in the graham flour and essence of cloves.

  3. Make a firm dough, handling it carefully.

  4. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick.

  5. Cut into oblong pieces, the size of soda crackers.

Bake

  1. Dock the pieces and bake on a hot griddle.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the scones a soft, tender body.
Graham flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Eggs
Bind the mashed potato and flour together and add richness to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Drying the boiled potatoes. Excess water left in the potatoes makes the mash wet, so the dough becomes sticky and hard to shape. Drying them by the fire evaporates surface moisture, keeping the dough firm enough to roll and cut.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, potato, cream, egg. 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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