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Bread

5. Buns.

Sweet yeast buns made with scalded milk, butter, sugar, raisins and lemon, shaped like biscuits and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

5. Buns.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Add 1/2 sugar and salt to milk.

  2. When lukewarm, add dissolved yeast and 1-1/2 cups flour.

  3. Cover and let rise until light.

  4. Add butter, remaining sugar, raisins, lemon, and flour enough to make a stiff batter.

  5. Let rise.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape like biscuits.

  2. Let rise again.

  3. Bake.

  4. If wanted glazed, brush over with beaten egg before baking.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

668Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

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

By Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley. 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the trapped gas and gives the buns their shape.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Shaping before it has risen enough leaves dense buns, while letting it rise too long can weaken the structure so it collapses or becomes coarse.

“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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