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Dessert

Currant Scones

Currant scones are small, sweet baked goods made with flour, currants, candied peel, lard, sugar, 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 ↓

Currant 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. Clean the currants and chop the candied peel.

  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

Make the dough

  1. Lightly rub in the lard or margarine.

  2. Add the sugar, currants, and candied peel, mixing well.

  3. Stir in about ½ cup of milk to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough in two and shape into rounds.

  2. Place on a greased baking sheet and mark across the tops.

  3. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

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. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  5. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

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 its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the scones rise and become light.
Lard or margarine
Rubbed into the flour to create tenderness by coating flour particles with fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Currants
Provide pockets of sweetness and fruitiness throughout the scones.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds richness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Lightly rub in the lard or margarine. Overworking the fat into the flour develops gluten and makes the scones tough. Keeping the mixture light preserves a tender, crumbly texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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