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Currant or Cinnamon Buns

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Currant or Cinnamon Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Roll the dough on a floured surface into a rectangular sheet ½ inch thick.

  2. Spread the sheet lightly with softened butter.

  3. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and strew with currants or cinnamon.

  4. Roll the sheet tightly like a jelly roll and cut into 1-inch slices.

  5. Place the slices on a greased baking sheet about 1 inch apart.

  6. Let the buns rise until they have tripled in size.

  7. Sprinkle the tops with chopped nuts or brush with a mixture of sugar and milk.

  8. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 25 minutes.

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

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

  2. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Nuts + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, currant, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

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