Name: Plain Currant Buns
Ingredients: 5 pounds plain bun or roll dough; 1 pound currants, well washed; Lemon, for flavoring; Milk, for washing

Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain Currant Buns

Ingredients

5 pounds plain bun or roll dough
1 pound currants, well washed
Lemon, for flavoring
Milk, for washing

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Work the currants into the bun dough and flavor with lemon.
Break the dough into small pieces and shape them into rounds.
Place the rounds on baking pans so they touch lightly.

Bake

Wash the buns with milk, let them prove, and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Plain bun or roll dough: Provides the enriched structure that holds the currants and rises into soft buns.
Currants: Add pockets of sweetness and fruit flavor and a chewy bite throughout the dough.
Milk: Brushed on top, it promotes golden browning during baking.