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Sultana Scones

Sultana scones are quick baked pastries made with flour, baking powder, margarine, sugar, sultanas, and milk.

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

Sultana 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

  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.

Make the dough

  1. Add the cleaned sultanas and sugar, then mix well.

  2. Pour in the milk and work the mixture into a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and cut into triangular pieces.

Bake

  1. Place the pieces on a lightly greased or floured baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden.

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. 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 structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the scones rise and turn light.
Margarine
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, which tenderises the crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a dough and adds moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the scones brown in the oven.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the scone.

The step that matters

Rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Coating flour particles with fat limits gluten formation, so rubbing in the fat until evenly crumbly keeps the scones tender rather than tough.

“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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