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Bread

Sally-lunn

A yeast bread dough with mashed potato, butter, lard, and sugar baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sally-lunn

Ingredients

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 the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and sugar. Rub in the butter and lard until well mixed.

  2. Add the mashed potato and yeast, then mix in the beaten eggs.

  3. Gradually add warm water until the dough reaches a light bread dough consistency.

  4. Knead the dough for half an hour.

Rise and bake

  1. Let it rise until light, then handle it gently.

  2. Place the dough into a greased cake mold and bake at 400°F (200°C) without a second kneading.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 bread its structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour in the crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and keeps it tender.
Mashed potato
Adds moisture and starch that keep the bread soft.

The step that matters

Kneading and then letting the dough rise gently. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap the gas yeast produces. Handling it roughly after it has risen can knock out that gas and leave a denser loaf.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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