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Dessert

Plain Scones

A quick oven-baked scone made with flour, baking powder, margarine, sugar, salt, egg, and milk.

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 ↓

Plain Scones

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk 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. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.

  3. Rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

  4. Add the sugar and salt, then make a well in the center.

  5. Crack the egg into the well and add enough milk to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into small pieces and shape them into rounds.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with butter, or let cool, then toast and butter.

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 of the scones as gluten develops when mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the scones rise and become light.
Margarine
Coats flour particles when rubbed in, tenderizing the crumb and adding richness.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and helps bind the dough together.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture for a soft crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the dough. Too much liquid makes the dough sticky and dense, while too little leaves scones dry and crumbly. Add milk gradually until the dough just comes together, since overworking develops gluten and toughens the texture.

“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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