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Dessert

Sally Lunn

A sweet, yeasted bun made with sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar, baked until golden.

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

Sally Lunn

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar and eggs together until well combined.

  2. Mix the cream of tartar with the milk and add it to the sugar and egg mixture.

  3. Stir in enough flour to create a thin batter.

  4. Add the baking soda and salt, and stir briskly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. Serve with vinegar sauce.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its shape when baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the bun rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to the baking soda, producing gas bubbles and stabilizing the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown during baking.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the bun its body once baked.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda and salt, and stir briskly. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar right away, so the batter should go into the pan and oven promptly. Waiting lets the gas escape before baking sets the crumb, which can leave the bun flat.

“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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