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Dessert

Yorkshire Tea Scones

A quick scone made with flour, butter, sugar, milk, baking powder, and egg, baked at 400°F for 10 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Yorkshire Tea Scones

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the milk and warm it slightly.

  2. In a bowl, combine the sugar with the warm milk.

  3. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, making a well in the center.

  4. Add the egg to the well, then pour in the milk mixture and mix until well combined.

  5. The dough should be thin; roll it out and cut into shapes.

Bake

  1. Place the scones on a floured baking sheet and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, helping the scones rise and become light.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and set the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the scones.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the dough its softness.

The step that matters

Keep the dough thin and handle it gently. Baking powder lifts the dough quickly in a hot oven, but overworking develops gluten and makes scones tough. Rolling the dough to an even thickness helps the scones rise 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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