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Dessert

Butter Scones

A quick fried scone made with flour, butter, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Butter Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour and baking soda.

  3. Add enough cold milk to form a soft paste.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut into rounds about 3 inches across.

  3. Fry in butter until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with jam.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 that holds the scones together as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and fries the scones to a golden brown surface.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid and releases gas, helping the scones rise and lighten.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough binds into a soft, pliable paste.

The step that matters

Frying in butter until light brown. Butter browns quickly because its milk solids darken at high heat. Medium heat lets the centres cook through before the outside burns.

“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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