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Bread

Sally Lunn

A yeast-leavened, milk-based bread with eggs, butter, and sugar.

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

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the milk, then let it cool until lukewarm.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of tepid water and add it to the milk.

  3. Stir in the melted butter, flour, sugar, and salt. Beat well.

  4. Let the mixture stand for 2 hours.

Add the eggs and bake

  1. Separate the eggs. Beat the whites. Beat the yolks.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Let it stand for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. 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

Eggs
Whites and yolks add structure and richness, helping the bread set and hold its airy crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the batter to rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that traps gas and gives the bread its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer texture and richer flavor.
Milk
Provides moisture and tenderness while contributing to browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Beating the whites separately. Beaten egg whites trap air that expands in the oven, so they need to be whipped separately and folded in gently. Overbeating or deflating them loses this lift and makes the bread denser.

“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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