Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Buns
Ingredients
Directions
Warm 1½ cups of milk in a saucepan.
Place ½ ounce of German yeast in a bowl.
Gradually pour the warm milk onto the yeast, mixing well.
In a large bowl, combine 1 pound of flour with the milk and yeast mixture to form a dough.
Cover the bowl with a cloth and let it rise for about 1 hour.
In another saucepan, warm 1½ cups of milk with 1 ounce of butter.
In a bowl, mix ½ pound of flour with the milk and butter mixture.
Once the dough has risen, combine it with the flour and milk mixture, mixing well.
Add ¼ pound of sultana raisins or currants and ¼ pound of moist sugar, mixing thoroughly.
Cover the bowl again and let it rise for another hour.
Grease a tin with dripping or butter, or use a greased oven shelf if no tin is available.
Flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it.
Use a floured knife to cut the dough into pieces.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits less well
- Coconutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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