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Bread

Sally Lunn

A yeasted bread made with flour, butter, eggs, salt, sweet milk, and yeast, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Combine flour, butter, eggs, salt, and sweet milk in a large bowl.

  2. Add yeast and mix until the dough reaches a proper consistency.

  3. In winter, prepare the dough around 9 AM; in summer, around 11 AM.

  4. Work the dough over at about 4 PM.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a round and place it in pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown and serve with butter for tea at 7 PM.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the bread's crumb together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the loaf set and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for a soft, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, which leavens the dough and makes it rise.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Work the dough over at about 4 PM. Yeast dough rises according to its temperature and timing, so the dough must be handled at the stated time to develop properly before shaping and baking. Working it at the wrong point can leave the loaf dense or 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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