Name: Buns
Ingredients: 1 cup scalded milk; ⅓ cup butter; ⅓ cup sugar; 1 yeast cake dissolved in; ¼ cup lukewarm water; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ cup raisins stoned and cut in quarters; 1 teaspoon extract lemon; Flour

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Add one-half sugar and salt to milk; when lukewarm, add dissolved yeast cake and one and one-half cups flour; cover, and let rise until light; add butter, remaining sugar, raisins, lemon, and flour to make a dough; let rise, shape like biscuits, let rise again, and bake. If wanted glazed, brush over with beaten egg before baking.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

829Calories

22 gProtein

21 gFat

139 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Cake	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, raisin, flour):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, raisin, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.