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Bread

Sally Lunn

A sweet yeast bread roll made with milk, flour, yeast, eggs, and lard or butter, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Sally Lunn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm one pint of milk with a piece of lard or butter the size of an egg.

  2. Remove from stove and add three well beaten eggs, three pints of flour, and one cup of yeast.

  3. Let the mixture stand about three hours or until light.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into flat pans without working or kneading, and let stand an hour before baking.

  2. Bake until golden.

  3. When baked, split and butter; eat white hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

899Calories
27 gProtein
39 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78

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

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 rise and crumb.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the crumb as the bread bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Lard or butter
Adds fat, tenderness and a richer flavour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand until light. Yeast needs time to ferment and build gas before baking. Rising too little leaves a dense loaf, so wait until the batter is visibly light before moving on.

“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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