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Dessert

Sally Lunn

A sweet, yeast‑leavened cake made with butter, milk, flour, sugar, baking powder, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 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 ↓

Sally Lunn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm one-half cupful of butter in a pint of milk.

  2. Add a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, and seven cupfuls of sifted flour.

  3. Beat thoroughly until the mixture is blood warm.

  4. Add four beaten eggs and half a cup of good lively yeast.

  5. Beat hard until the batter breaks in blisters.

  6. Set it to rise overnight.

Bake the first batch

  1. In the morning, dissolve half a teaspoonful of soda and stir it into the batter.

  2. Turn the batter into a well-buttered shallow dish and let rise again for about fifteen or twenty minutes.

  3. Bake for about fifteen to twenty minutes.

Make and bake the second batch

  1. Rub a piece of butter as large as an egg into a quart of flour.

  2. Add a tumbler of milk, two eggs, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, three tablespoonfuls of baking powder, and a teaspoonful of salt.

  3. Scatter the baking powder, salt, and sugar into the flour.

  4. Add the eggs, the butter (melted), and the milk, and stir all together.

  5. Bake in well-greased round pans.

  6. Eat warm with butter.

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 F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Milk + flourtop 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the risen cake together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, lightening the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Milk
Supplies moisture and helps form a soft, tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the second batch rise.

The step that matters

Beat hard until the batter breaks in blisters. Vigorous beating develops gluten, giving the batter the elastic structure needed to trap gas from the yeast during the overnight rise.

“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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