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 ↓
Soda Scones
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar lightly with your fingertips for 5 minutes.
Rub in the butter until well combined.
Shape and bake
Add buttermilk gradually to form a stiff paste.
Quickly shape the mixture into scones.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together674 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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 bake.
- 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 produce gas for lift.
- Unsalted butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Buttermilk
- Moistens the dough and its acidity activates the baking soda for rising.
The step that matters
Quickly shape the mixture into scones. Once the acid and baking soda meet liquid, they start producing gas, so the dough should be shaped and put into the oven without delay to keep the rise.
“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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