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Bath Buns

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bath Buns

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix ½ pound of batter with 1 pound of flour and 1 tablespoon of yeast.

  2. Warm ½ cup of cream and combine it to form a light paste; set aside to rise.

  3. Once risen, shape the mixture into buns and place caraway comfits on top.

  4. For improved flavor, warm 3 eggs in the cream before mixing them into the paste.

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. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + carawaytop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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