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Dessert

Raspberry Buns

A sweet bun made with flour, ground rice, lard, eggs, sugar, raspberry jam, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Raspberry 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 the dough

  1. Mix flour and ground rice together.

  2. Rub in the lard or butter lightly.

  3. Add all dry ingredients and mix well.

  4. Beat the eggs and combine with the mixture to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Form into balls and make a hole in the center.

  2. Place a little jam in the hole and close it up.

  3. Brush the tops with beaten egg.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes or until golden.

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

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 main structure of the dough so the buns hold their shape.
Ground rice
Gives the dough a shorter, slightly crumbly texture than flour alone.
Lard or butter
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, tenderness and richness to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the stiff paste together and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown as the buns bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the buns rise and become light.

The step that matters

Closing the jam filling. If the dough is not sealed firmly around the jam, the filling can leak out during baking and leave the bun dry and empty inside. Enough dough should cover the jam completely.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

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