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Bread

Sally Lunn

A yeast bread made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, and salt, baked in a Turk's head mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk and the dissolved yeast.

  4. Gradually add the flour and salt, mixing well.

  5. Cover and let the dough rise overnight or all day.

Bake

  1. Bake in an old-fashioned Turk's head mold.

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. Egg + flourtop 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough as they set during baking.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the bread its light texture.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness while adding a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Long rise of the dough. The dough must rise slowly and fully, overnight or all day, so the yeast can develop flavour and gas. A short or rushed rise leaves the bread dense and under-risen.

“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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