Name: Spanish Buns
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 2 cups brown sugar; ½ cup butter; 1 cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon; 2 teaspoons ground cloves; 2½ cups sifted flour

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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.

Make the dough

Cream the butter and brown sugar together.
Add the beaten eggs and milk, mixing well.
Stir in the sifted flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves.

Shape and bake

Form the mixture into small rolls.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for twenty minutes.

Make the frosting

For frosting, beat the egg whites with cinnamon and cloves, then thicken with brown sugar.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the buns set in the oven.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the buns brown and develop flavour.
Butter: Provides fat that gives the buns a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the oven, helping the buns rise and become light.
Flour: Forms the main structure that holds the buns together as they bake.

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original

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