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Dessert

Dropped Scones

A quick scone made with flour, sugar, baking soda, golden syrup, cream of tartar, salt, buttermilk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dropped Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg well and add buttermilk to it.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients to form a fairly soft batter.

Cook and finish

  1. Grease a hot griddle with suet.

  2. Drop the mixture onto the griddle using an iron spoon.

  3. Cook until brown on one side, then turn and brown the other side.

  4. Wrap the scones in a clean towel.

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. Syrup + buttermilktop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they cook.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, giving the scones a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the scones.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the scones rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness to the scones.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, flavour and some moisture, and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Drop the mixture onto the griddle. The batter should be fairly soft but still hold its shape. Dropping it onto a hot, greased griddle sets the outside quickly so the scones keep their shape and brown evenly.

“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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