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Dessert

Sweet Drop Scones

A quick batter drop scone made with flour, sugar, baking soda, tartaric acid, eggs, buttermilk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweet Drop Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and tartaric acid.

  2. Make a well in the center and add the beaten eggs and buttermilk.

  3. Stir with a wooden spoon until you have a thick batter.

  4. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes until bubbles form.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle or frying pan and grease it well.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto the hot surface.

  3. When the tops look dry, quickly turn them over using a knife.

  4. Cook until browned.

  5. Serve with butter.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 cook.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the scones rise.
Tartaric acid
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to create lift.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during cooking.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderising the crumb and helping the leavening react.

The step that matters

Turning the scones. The batter's bubbles and leavening act quickly, so the scones should be turned once the tops look dry and set. Turning too early tears the batter, and waiting too long lets them over-brown before the centre cooks through.

“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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