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Dessert

Tea Scones

A quick baked scone made with flour, butter, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tea 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

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

  2. Rub in the butter, then add the sugar.

  3. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then combine with the flour mixture to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Butter a baking tray and drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto it to form small scones.

  2. Bake for 10 minutes 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. 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they bake.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the scones rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to leaven the scones.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping bind the dough.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms a soft dough.

The step that matters

Combine the wet and dry mixtures gently. Once the liquid meets the flour, gluten begins to form and the baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting. Mixing only until the dough just comes together keeps the scones light and tender rather than tough and dense.

“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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