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Wheatmeal Scones

A quick wheatmeal scone made with flour, baking powder, margarine, sugar, milk, and salt.

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 ↓

Wheatmeal 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. Mix baking powder and salt with the flour.

Make the dough

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

  2. Stir in the sugar and wheatmeal.

  3. Add enough milk to bind the mixture together.

  4. Divide the dough into four cakes.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven 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

Wheatmeal
Provides the main body and a nutty, wholesome texture to the scones.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming structure so the dough holds its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the scones rise and become light.
Margarine
Coats flour particles and makes the scones tender and crumbly.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough binds and moisture helps browning.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to bind the mixture together.. Too much liquid makes the dough sticky and tough, while too little leaves dry, crumbly scones. Add milk gradually and stop once the dough just holds 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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