Scones Lab
Flaky to cakey: butter, cream, sugar and leavening per 100 g of flour.
660 recipes from 141 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical batch, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.
Recipes
660
from 141 sites
Typical flour
250 g
about 2 cups
Oven
400°F
205°C · median of 589
Bake time
16 min
most 14 to 20 min
The median of all 660 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 250 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| FlourThe scale for everything else | 250 gabout 2 cups |
| ButterMost recipes use 60 to 110 g | 85 gabout 1/3 cup |
| LiquidMost recipes use 110 to 165 g | 130 gabout 1/2 cup |
| SugarMost recipes use 29 to 70 g | 50 gabout 1/4 cup |
| Egg37% use none; the rest mostly 42 to 55 g | 39 gabout 1 large egg |
| LeaveningMost recipes use 9 to 13 g | 11 g |
| SaltMost recipes use 0.5 to 3 g | 2 g |
Bake400°F (205°C) for about 16 minutes.
Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g, a large egg 50 g.
Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.
median 33% · most 24 to 43%
Cold butter worked into the flour melts into steam pockets: more of it makes a flakier, richer scone.
range 0 to 60% · 4% use none
median 52% · most 44 to 65%
Cream, buttermilk or milk; cream-only scones skip the butter and rely on the cream's fat.
range 15 to 110%
median 20% · most 11 to 28%
British scones are barely sweet; American bakery scones carry several times the sugar.
range 0 to 45% · 8% use none
median 16% · 37% use none
Egg makes a richer, more cake-like scone; traditional British ones use none.
range 0 to 50% · those that use some, mostly 17 to 22%
median 4.4% · most 3.6 to 5.3%
Scones rise on baking powder alone, so they carry about as much as a biscuit; self-rising flour recipes add none.
range 0 to 11% · 1% use none
median 0.8% · most 0.2 to 1.2%
Salt keeps a plain scone from tasting floury.
range 0 to 3% · 13% use none
Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.
Recipes agree most on leavening and liquid: leavening 3.6 to 5.3%, liquid 44 to 65% for the middle half.
655 of the recipes come in 6 languages with enough of each to compare: English 466, French 73, German 47, Dutch 35, Portuguese 24, Italian 10.
English recipes whose titles use a word, against the ones that do not. What recipe writers do when they pick the word, not proof that it makes the texture.
Recipes called “easy” (11) or “classic” (10) use about the same amounts as the rest on every ingredient measured here.
Recipes with “cheese” in the title: most use no sugar (83% vs 2%); less butter (24% vs 36%); more leavening (5.5% vs 4.6%).
“cheese” (18)the rest (448)middle half of all
Sugar · share using anyrecipes with cheese in the title 16% vs the rest 97%
Butterrecipes with cheese in the title 24% vs the rest 36%
Leaveningrecipes with cheese in the title 5.5% vs the rest 4.6%
Recipes with “pumpkin” in the title: less liquid (32% vs 54%); more sugar (31% vs 22%).
“pumpkin” (36)the rest (430)middle half of all
Liquidrecipes with pumpkin in the title 32% vs the rest 54%
Sugarrecipes with pumpkin in the title 31% vs the rest 22%
87 scone recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 573, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:
On no ingredient do the most-reviewed recipes differ from the rest by more than chance would explain.
50+ ratings (87)the rest (573)middle half of all
Butterthe most-reviewed recipes 34% vs the rest 33%
Liquidthe most-reviewed recipes 56% vs the rest 52%
Sugarthe most-reviewed recipes 20% vs the rest 20%
Eggthe most-reviewed recipes 19% vs the rest 15%
Leaveningthe most-reviewed recipes 4.6% vs the rest 4.4%
Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 1.1% vs the rest 0.8%
589 of 660 recipes state an oven temperature, and 51% of those bake at 400°F (205°C). The middle half bake at 400 to 425°F. The other 71 do not say.
633 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 16 minutes and the middle half bake 14 to 20 minutes.
The single most common pairing is 400°F for 14 to 16 minutes, with 59 of the 574 recipes that state both.
Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.
In 7 languages: English 466, French 73, German 47, Dutch 35, Portuguese 24, Italian 10, Spanish 5. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 141 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.
Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.
96% of the 6,179 ingredient lines got a weight. 29% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.
A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 268 were left out: 160 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (liquid 85, sugar 34, butter 32, egg 4, leavening 3, salt 2), 36 over the 12-per-site cap, 34 with a title that names a different dish, 11 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 10 duplicates of other pages, 7 made from a boxed mix, 6 too many lines without an amount, 3 with an ingredient in amounts that could not be weighed, and 1 a listing page, not a recipe page.
Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.