Oven Scones
4 cupfuls flour 5 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1 teaspoonful baking soda 2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar 1 egg Sweet milk Rub Crisco finely into flour, add sugar, salt, soda, and cream of tartar. Beat egg, put half of it into cup, then with one-half and some sweet milk make other ingredients into soft dough. Knead very little on floured baking board, divide into five pieces, make them smooth and roll out, not too thinly, cut them into four small cakes. Lay them on a Criscoed tin, brush over with remaining egg and bake in hot oven ten minutes. A few currants or raisins may be added if liked.
Sufficient for twenty small scones.
A plain baking-powder scone from the era when Crisco was the new thing and cooks still raised their doughs with soda and cream of tartar bought separately. The method is sound; only the measurements need translating.
- The liquid is not given"Sweet milk" enough to make a soft dough means roughly 1 to 1 1/4 cups with 4 cups of flour and half a beaten egg. Add it in stages and stop while the dough is still soft and slightly tacky rather than firm.
- Sweet milkFresh whole milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that many recipes of the period call for. The distinction matters here because the recipe supplies its own acid in the cream of tartar.
- Soda and cream of tartarOne teaspoon soda to two of cream of tartar is a homemade baking powder, roughly equivalent to 4 teaspoons of modern double-acting powder. Sift it thoroughly through the flour; unmixed soda leaves yellow bitter streaks.
- Hot oven425-450F. Ten minutes is right at that heat for small thin scones, but check at eight and give them twelve if the tops are still pale.
- CriscoVegetable shortening, still sold under that name but reformulated over the years. Butter works and tastes better; use 5 tablespoons either way and keep it cold so it rubs into flakes rather than smearing.
- Criscoed tinA greased flat baking sheet. Parchment does the job with no fat at all.
- ShapingFive pieces, each rolled out and cut in four, gives the twenty small scones the recipe promises; quartering a round would produce wedges, though the recipe does not say what shape to cut. "Not too thinly" suggests something in the region of half an inch.
- Handling"Knead very little" is the hinge. Work the dough only until it holds together, or the gluten develops and the scones turn tough and close-grained.
Scones came north-of-the-border first, and in Scotland were baked on a girdle over the fire; the oven scone is the later form, arriving with domestic ovens and chemical raising, and the title here distinguishes it from the griddle kind. The reliance on separate soda and cream of tartar rather than a tin of ready-made baking powder was still common in the early twentieth century, and it gives the cook control over the ratio. The Crisco is the period marker: the shortening was introduced in 1911, and the manufacturer promoted it through recipe books and menu collections in the following years, which is why a Scottish tea-table staple appears here shortening-bound rather than made with butter.