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Dessert

Breakfast Scones

A quick baked scone made with flour, butter, milk, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Breakfast Scones

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

  3. Mix in the milk to form a stiff dough.

  4. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into rounds using a floured cutter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake immediately in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. When nearly done, brush the tops with milk.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the scones as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it creates a tender, crumbly texture by coating flour particles.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the scones rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to leaven the dough.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after cutting. The baking soda and cream of tartar begin producing gas as soon as they are moistened, so waiting lets the leavening weaken and the scones rise less well.

“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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