Skip to main content
Baking

Bannock Scones

A quick batter scone made with flour, sugar, butter, egg, and buttermilk, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bannock Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, butter, and egg.

  2. Gradually add buttermilk until you form a stiff batter.

  3. If the scones are too thick, add more buttermilk to soften the batter.

Cook

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a hot griddle.

  2. Cook until the bottom is brown, then flip to brown the other side.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Prepared flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they set.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and sets the batter's consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Adding buttermilk gradually. Adding liquid slowly lets you judge the batter's consistency. Too much buttermilk at once makes the batter loose and spreading, while too little leaves dry, dense scones. Stiff batter holds its shape on the griddle.

“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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes