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Dessert

London Buns

A sweet roll made with flour, butter, sugar, lemon peel, baking powder, egg, and milk, topped with lemon peel and coarse sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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London Buns

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

London Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the butter or lard into the flour until well combined.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and chopped lemon peel in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg and add enough milk to make a light dough.

  3. Shape the dough into eight balls and place them on a greased baking tray.

Glaze and bake

  1. Brush the tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

  2. Top each bun with a strip of lemon peel.

  3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the buns.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the buns as the dough sets in the oven.
Butter or lard
Fat that rubs into the flour to give the buns a tender crumb.
Egg
Binds the dough and gives a glossy, browned top when brushed on.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the buns rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright citrus aroma through the dough and on top.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the egg. Milk should be added gradually until the dough just comes together. Too much liquid makes it sticky and hard to shape, while too little leaves the buns dry and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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