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Dessert

Butter Scotch Filling

A butter-based filling for Scotch buns made with butter, flour, scalded milk, sugar, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Butter Scotch Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Cream one-fourth cup of butter and mix with three-fourths cup of brown sugar.

  2. Add one-fourth cup of flour.

  3. Pour over this mixture two cups of scalded milk and turn into the double boiler.

  4. Add beaten yolks of two eggs.

  5. Cook, stirring all the time until the mixture thickens.

  6. Add one-fourth teaspoonful salt.

Finish and brown

  1. Beat the whites of two eggs until stiff.

  2. Beat in two tablespoonfuls of brown sugar and a speck of salt.

  3. Set in the oven five minutes to brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and carries fat through the filling.
Flour
Thickens the scalded milk together with the cooked egg yolks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and yolks thicken into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, while stiffly beaten whites give the topping its light structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the custard while stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle or scorch if the mixture overheats or sits still, and flour can form lumps. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

“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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