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Cinnamon Buns

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Buns

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the bread sponge, egg, sugar, lard, baking soda dissolved in a teaspoon of water, and salt.

  2. Mix well and add flour until the dough is soft.

  3. Knead the dough in the bowl for 10 minutes.

  4. Let the dough rise until very light.

  5. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thickness.

  6. Spread a mixture of sugar and butter over the dough.

  7. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.

  8. Roll the dough up like a jelly roll and cut into 1-inch pieces.

  9. Place the buns in a biscuit tin.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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