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Bread

Sally Lunn

A yeasted bread loaf made with flour, butter, eggs, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine 4 cups of flour, ¼ pound of softened butter, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of salt, and ½ cup of sweet milk.

  2. Mix until a dough forms, adding more flour as needed to achieve a proper consistency.

  3. Prepare the dough in the morning around 9 AM in winter or 11 AM in summer.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the dough rise until about 4 PM, then shape it into a round loaf and place it in pans.

  2. Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) until golden brown, about 30‑40 minutes.

  3. Butter the loaf before serving.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the bread's crumb together as it rises and bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough bind and set in the oven.
Sweet milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and softens the crumb.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until about 4 PM. Yeast-free rising in this record depends entirely on the dough's timing and temperature; underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough collapses. Check the dough's size rather than relying only on the clock.

“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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