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Plain Buns

Plain buns are yeast‑leavened bread rolls made with flour, sugar, yeast, milk, butter, and warm milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Buns

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Plain Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA good brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Sift the flour and mix in the sugar in a basin.

  2. Make a hole in the center of the mixture.

  3. Stir in the yeast and lukewarm milk until the mixture reaches the thickness of cream.

  4. Cover the basin with a cloth and let the sponge rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter without letting it oil.

  2. Stir the melted butter into the mixture along with enough warm milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Shape the dough into buns about the size of an egg and place them in rows, 3 inches apart.

  4. Let the buns rise in a warm place until they double in size.

Bake

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Brush the buns with a little milk just before they are done.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the buns their structure.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the sponge, producing gas that makes the buns rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Milk
Provides moisture to hydrate the flour and form a soft dough.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast during the sponge stage.

The step that matters

Let the sponge rise until it is light and bubbly. The sponge must be fully fermented before the butter and remaining milk are added. Yeast needs time in a warm place to produce enough gas for a light bun, and a shortened rise leaves the buns dense.

“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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