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Dessert

Scones with Sour Milk

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Scones with Sour Milk

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

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

  2. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Stir in the sour milk until just combined.

  4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to about ½ inch thick and cut into rounds.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the scones.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the scones rise.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create flaky layers and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk until just combined. Overmixing once liquid is added develops gluten, which makes scones tough and dense rather than tender. Stopping as soon as the flour is moistened keeps the texture light.

“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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