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Dessert

Sweet Milk Scones

A light dough scone made with flour, baking soda, sugar, butter, salt, cream of tartar, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sweet Milk 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the butter or margarine into the flour.

  3. Add the baking soda, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar; mix well.

  4. Gradually add the milk to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured board and work lightly.

  2. Roll out the dough and cut it into eight pieces.

  3. Place the pieces on a greased baking tin.

  4. To glaze, brush the scones with a little egg or milk before baking.

  5. Bake for 10 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the scones as the dough sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that lifts the scones.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda to help the scones rise.
Butter or margarine
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, tenderness, and a crumbly texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to bind the dough and adds moisture and browning.

The step that matters

Work the dough lightly. Overworking develops gluten in the flour, making the scones tough and dense instead of tender and light.

“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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