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Sally Lunn

A sweet yeast bread with butter, milk, sugar, and eggs, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sally Lunn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Warm the butter in the milk.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and flour; beat thoroughly.

  3. When the mixture is warm, add the beaten eggs and yeast.

  4. Beat hard until the batter blisters.

  5. Set aside to rise overnight.

Rise and bake

  1. In the morning, dissolve baking soda and stir it into the batter.

  2. Transfer the batter to a well-buttered shallow dish and let it rise for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes until light brown.

  4. Tear apart to serve; do not cut with a knife.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 gluten network that gives the bread its structure and crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting as the bread bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the overnight batter rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and a rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the batter and help it rise further.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps build a soft, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Beat hard until the batter blisters. Vigorous beating develops the gluten that traps gas from the yeast, so the batter can rise well and bake light rather than 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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