Skip to main content
Dessert

Treacle Bun

A sweet, molasses-based bun with raisins, ginger, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Treacle Bun

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a pan, combine butter, sugar, and molasses; bring to a boil.

  2. Once boiling, pour the mixture over the well-beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set its structure as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark colour, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the bun rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the eggs. The boiling syrup can scramble the eggs if it is poured in quickly or without stirring. Pour slowly while beating so the eggs warm gradually and blend smoothly into the batter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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

“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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes