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Dessert

Spanish Bun

A sweet cinnamon and spice bun baked with a brown sugar icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spanish Bun

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Bun

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 batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs (reserve the whites of 3 for icing) and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, flour, and baking powder until combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a well‑greased flat tin.

Bake and ice

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. For the icing, beat the reserved egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Gradually add 1 cup of light brown sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Spread the icing over the hot cake and return to the oven to 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and their whites whip into the icing.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a tender batter.

The step that matters

Spread the icing over the hot cake and return to the oven to brown. Beaten egg white foam is delicate and can collapse or weep if overbaked, so watch it closely while it browns.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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