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Dessert

Unexcelled Cinnamon Buns

A yeast dough filled with currants, cinnamon, and brown sugar, rolled, sliced, and baked into sweet buns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Unexcelled Cinnamon Buns

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.

Make the dough

  1. Soften the yeast in 1/4 cup of milk.

  2. Add the softened yeast to the remaining milk.

  3. Sift the first quantity of flour into the mixture.

  4. Beat until the dough is light and free from lumps.

  5. Cover the dough and let it rise until full of bubbles (about 1 hour).

  6. Add granulated sugar, softened butter, eggs, 1/2 cup currants, and flour to the dough.

  7. Beat and mix until a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl clean.

  8. Knead the dough until elastic.

  9. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover, and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and fill

  1. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board.

  2. Cut the dough in half.

  3. Roll each half into a 1/4 inch thick sheet.

  4. Spread half of the softened butter on the dough.

  5. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon and brown sugar on the dough.

  6. Sprinkle half of the currants on the dough.

  7. Roll the dough like a jelly roll.

  8. Cut the rolled dough into pieces about 1 1/4 inches wide.

  9. Place the pieces close together in a heavily buttered and sugar-sprinkled pan.

  10. Repeat steps 7-9 with the second half of the dough.

  11. Let the second half rise until doubled in size.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 50 minutes.

  2. About 10 minutes before removing from the oven, brush the buns with a paste made from cornstarch mixed with a little cold water and boiling water.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Bread flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Compressed yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness, structure and a tender crumb to the enriched dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the filling spread.
Granulated sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the baked buns.
Cornstarch
Forms a starch paste that gives the glaze a soft, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas for a light, airy crumb. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse or lose structure.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, flour, sugar, butter, egg, 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.

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