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Dessert

English Scones

A quick, buttery scone made with flour, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, butter, and buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  2. Mix well with your fingertips, then rub in the grated butter until combined.

  3. Add buttermilk gradually to form a stiff dough, leaving the bowl sides clean.

  4. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to ¼ inch thick and cut into round shapes.

  2. Bake on a preheated griddle until golden brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + buttermilktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Forms the structure that holds the scones together as they set.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the scones rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and buttermilk to release gas for lift.
Unsalted butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderize the crumb and add richness.
Buttermilk
Provides moisture and acidity that activates the leavening and softens the dough.

The step that matters

Adding the buttermilk. Adding liquid gradually lets you stop once the dough is stiff but not sticky. Too much liquid makes the dough wet and dense, while the gluten in flour develops more when it is overworked, which toughens the scones.

“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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