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Dessert

Cinnamon Buns

A yeasted sweet roll flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Cinnamon Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm milk.

  2. Add 1 cup of flour. Beat well.

  3. Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

  4. Add 2 cups sifted flour, ½ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 egg, and ¼ teaspoon salt.

  5. Knead lightly. Cover.

  6. Let rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out to ½ inch thick.

  2. Spread with a mixture of 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

  3. Roll up.

  4. Let rise until light.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets when baked.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the dough light and airy.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough for a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and coats the filling for richness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the baked buns.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the sweet filling.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast gas expands the dough and builds its airy texture. Rising too short leaves buns dense, while over-proofing can cause them to collapse or lose structure in the oven.

“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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