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Dessert

Spanish Buns

Spanish buns are sweet buns made with brown sugar, butter, sour milk, spices, flour, and eggs, topped with orange-flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the brown sugar and melted butter.

  2. Add the sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and flour; mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs, mixing until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake until golden.

  2. Prepare boiled icing flavored with orange and spread it on top.

  3. Cut into squares to serve.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the bun brown while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender crumb and a softer texture.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the bun rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, helping the batter rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set.

The step that matters

Mixing the eggs until smooth. Eggs should be fully blended so the batter is even; uneven mixing can leave pockets of egg and uneven rising and texture in the baked bun.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

“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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