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Dessert

Scotch Scones

A quick, savory scone made with flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, lard, eggs, and milk, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in the cold lard until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and nearly ¾ pint of milk; mix into a smooth dough.

  4. Knead quickly and roll out to 1½ inches thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into squares larger than soda crackers and fold each in half to form triangles.

  2. Bake on a hot griddle for 8 to 10 minutes, browning on each side.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the main structure that holds the scones together as they cook.
Lard
Rubbed into the flour to create tenderness and a crumbly texture.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough while adding structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the scones rise and become light.
Milk
Moistens the dough so it comes together into a smooth, workable mass.

The step that matters

Knead quickly and roll out to 1½ inches thick.. Overworking a dough develops gluten, making scones tough rather than tender. Keeping the handling brief preserves a light, short crumb.

“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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