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Dessert

Scotch Scones

A quick, sweet scone made with flour, butter, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, and churned milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Scotch Scones

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp 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).

  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, butter, sugar, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

Shape and bake

  1. Add eggs and enough churned milk to form a workable dough.

  2. Divide the dough into portions and shape them into rounds.

  3. You can either bake them whole or cut each round into four pieces.

  4. Brush the tops with beaten egg and turn them halfway through baking.

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the scones together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Fat coats the flour, keeping the crumb tender and rich.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the scones rise.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that activates the baking soda and adds a slight tang.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness, and their glaze browns the tops.

The step that matters

Add the milk and form the dough. Mixing the dough only until it holds together keeps the scones tender. Overworking develops gluten, which makes them tough, while too much liquid makes the dough hard to shape.

“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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