Name: Hot Cross Buns
Ingredients: dough (same as above); butter (for washing); coarse or fine sugar (for dipping); egg (optional, for washing after baking)

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Hot Cross Buns

Ingredients

dough (same as above)
butter (for washing)
coarse or fine sugar (for dipping)
egg (optional, for washing after baking)

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.

Cut the dough into small pieces.
Shape each piece into a round like a biscuit.
When the dough has risen halfway, press down each bun with a cross cutter.
Wash the buns with melted butter and dip them in sugar.
Let the buns rise again before baking them in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
Optionally, wash with egg before baking, and ice them after baking.

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.

Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).