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Dessert

Spanish Buns

Spanish buns are sweet raisin buns flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, molasses, melted butter, and water.

  3. Add the eggs, reserving the whites of two for frosting, and mix well.

  4. Stir in the ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.

  6. Fold in the baking powder and chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for about 30-40 minutes 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the mixture into a stiff batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the batter rise and turn light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a dark color to the batter.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets liquid, so folding it in gently and baking soon after mixing helps keep the batter's rise strong. Overmixing knocks out the gas bubbles and can leave the buns dense.

“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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