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Dessert

Sultana Scones

Sultana scones are quick baked pastries made with flour, sugar, sultanas, baking soda, buttermilk, butter, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sultana 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. Rub butter into the flour.

  2. Mix in sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

  3. Beat the egg. Set aside a little to brush over the scones.

  4. Add buttermilk to the beaten egg.

  5. Combine to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Brush with the reserved egg.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the scones as its proteins hydrate and set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the scones rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to leaven the dough and adds tang.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderizing the dough and activating the leavening.
Butter
Coats flour particles and creates tenderness and flakiness as it stays solid in the dough.
Egg
Adds richness and structure, and the beaten egg brushed on top promotes browning.

The step that matters

Combine to form a light dough. Overworking the dough develops gluten and makes scones tough, while mixing only until combined keeps them tender and lets the leavening lift them evenly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, buttermilk, cream, butter, egg):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, buttermilk, cream, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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