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Dessert

Brown Scones

A quick oven-baked wholemeal scone with treacle, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

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 ↓

Brown 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 the liquids

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of the milk.

  2. Warm the treacle and mix it with the rest of the warmed milk, but do not let it get hot.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the wholemeal flour, cream of tartar, and salt.

  2. Gradually add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing well.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Wholemeal flour
Provides the structure and the nutty, brown flavour of the scones.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar and treacle to produce gas that lifts the scones.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda to help the scones rise.
Treacle
Adds moisture, sweetness and colour, and its acidity helps the baking soda react.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds richness and browning.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it set in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing well.. Mixing gently and adding the liquid slowly keeps the dough moist and evenly combined. Overworking develops gluten and can make the scones tough, while the leavening gas is produced as soon as the wet and dry ingredients meet.

“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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