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Dessert

To Mare Buns

A sweet, spiced bun made with flour, yeast, milk, sugar, butter, coriander, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,635 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Mare Buns

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 dough

  1. Combine flour, yeast, and warm milk in a wooden bowl to create a sponge.

  2. Mix in sifted sugar, softened butter, and ground spices.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture into buns and place them on a buttered baking plate.

  2. Let the buns prove in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Brush the tops with warm milk.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

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. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the buns as its proteins develop into gluten.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the buns rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the buns and helps the crust brown as they bake.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that help the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the buns prove in the oven. Proving lets yeast gas expand the dough before baking. If the oven is too hot, the yeast dies off early and the buns stay dense, while the outside can set before the inside has risen.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, butter, coriander, 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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