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Dessert

Five O'clock Tea Scones

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

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 ↓

Five O'clock Tea 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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt.

  2. Rub the margarine into the flour mixture.

  3. Add the egg and milk, and mix to form an elastic dough.

  4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to 1 inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into shapes and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.

  2. Brush with egg or glaze before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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 its proteins set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the scones rise and become light.
Margarine
Fat rubbed into the flour, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps bind the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness, and browns the surface when brushed on.

The step that matters

Mix the dough only until it comes together. Flour proteins form gluten the more the dough is handled and mixed. Overworking makes the dough elastic and the scones tough rather than light and short.

“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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