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Dessert

Spanish Bun

A sweet coffee-flavored bun made with butter, egg yolks, coffee sugar, flour, milk, baking powder, and mixed spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Spanish Bun

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 ↓

Spanish Bun

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and egg yolks.

  3. Add the coffee sugar, flour, milk, baking powder, and mixed spices, and mix until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into a broad, shallow tin.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden.

  2. For the icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the coffee sugar.

  3. Spread the icing on the warm cake and return to the oven to brown lightly.

Cool

  1. Leave the cake in the pan until cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, making the cake rise and become light.
Coffee sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the icing brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Returning the iced cake to the oven. The icing is spread on a warm cake and must brown lightly. Sugar browns quickly at oven heat, so it can scorch if left too long. Watch it closely.

“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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