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Milk Scones
Mix in a bowl a pound and a half of flour, a heaped tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, the same of cream of tartar, a pint of sour milk, and a little salt. Knead a little with the hands, roll it out, and bake in a quick oven for ten minutes.
A plain soda-raised scone of the kind made daily in British and Irish kitchens before packet baking powder was standard. The whole thing hinges on speed: the soda begins reacting with the acid milk the moment they meet, so the dough should be in the oven within a few minutes of mixing.
- Work fast, knead barely at allCream of tartar and soda in the presence of sour milk give a single quick burst of gas rather than the slow double action of modern baking powder. Bring the dough together with as few strokes as possible and get it into a hot oven; a dough left to sit will bake flat.
- A quick ovenRead this as 425-450F (220-230C), with the shelf near the top. Ten minutes is right for scones rolled about three-quarters of an inch thick and cut into rounds or triangles; thicker ones want 12-15 minutes and should sound hollow when tapped underneath.
- Weights and the pintA pound and a half of flour is roughly 680g, or about five and a half cups. Cassell's is a British book, so the pint is the imperial one: 20 fl oz, about 570ml, or a shade under 2.5 US cups. Hold back a little of the milk at first and add it as needed, since flour absorbency varies.
- Sour milkThis meant raw milk left to clabber naturally, mildly acidic and slightly thickened. Cultured buttermilk is the closest reliable equivalent; ordinary pasteurised milk gone off is not the same thing and should not be used. At a pinch, milk soured with a tablespoon of lemon juice per cup will supply the acid, though not the body.
- Carbonate of sodaPlain bicarbonate of soda, what a US kitchen calls baking soda. Sift both it and the cream of tartar through with the flour rather than dropping them in as lumps, or you will get bitter yellow speckles in the crumb.
- No fat, no sugarThis is a lean dough by design, closer to a soda farl than to a modern cream scone. It stales within hours and is meant to be eaten warm, split and buttered, on the day it is baked.
- YieldSomething over a dozen and a half scones cut at two and a half inches, depending how thick they are rolled, or two large rounds scored into farls before baking.
Chemically raised scones spread through British and Irish kitchens in the nineteenth century, once bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar became cheap and reliable household goods; before that, the same griddle breads were leavened with barm or not at all. The pairing here is simply baking powder assembled in the bowl, before proprietary tins made the mixture a single purchase. Sour milk was not an affectation but a fact of life in a house without refrigeration, and a great many recipes of the period exist chiefly to use it up. The word scone itself is Scots, generally traced to the Low Countries via schoonbrood, fine bread, though the etymology is disputed and has been for a century.