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Bread

Sally-lunn

A light bread dough made with flour, salt, sugar, butter, lard, mashed potato, yeast, eggs, and warm water.

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Rub in butter and lard until well mixed.

  3. Add the mashed potato and yeast.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add to the mixture.

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

  6. Knead the dough for half an hour.

Rise and bake

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

  2. Place the dough in a greased cake mold and bake 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 structure that holds the bread's shape as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and hold its tender texture.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and makes it more tender.
Mashed potato
Holds moisture and starch, helping the bread stay soft and moist.

The step that matters

Let it rise until light, then handle lightly. Yeast needs time to build gas and stretch the gluten network. Handling the dough roughly after it has risen can knock out the trapped gas and make the bread dense.

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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