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Dessert

Spanish Bun

A sweet cake with a buttery batter and brown sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Spanish Bun

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spanish Bun

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 the cake

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the egg, egg yolks, and sweet milk; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, mixed spices, and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Bake and frost

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

  2. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 1 cup of brown sugar.

  3. Spread the frosting on the cake and return it to the oven to brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as the cake sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture, caramel flavour and browning to the cake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to lift the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites for the frosting. Whites must be beaten until stiff before the sugar is added. Under-beaten whites stay loose and will not hold the frosting, while sugar added too early can slow foaming.

Swap the cinnamon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, milk, flour, cream. 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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