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Currant Tea Ring

A sweet yeast-raised ring of rolled dough filled with brown sugar, currants and cinnamon, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Currant Tea Ring

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.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar in lukewarm water.

  2. Add 3 cups of flour and beat until smooth.

  3. Mix in lard or butter and sugar, then add eggs beaten until light.

  4. Gradually add the remaining flour, keeping the dough soft, then add salt and mace.

  5. Turn onto a floured surface and knead lightly.

  6. Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.

Shape the ring

  1. Roll out to a ¼ inch thick oblong, brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with brown sugar, currants, and cinnamon.

  2. Roll up lengthwise and place in a circle on a greased baking sheet.

  3. Cut ¾ inch slices almost through and turn each slice partly on its side to create a star effect.

  4. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until light.

Bake and finish

  1. Just before baking, glaze with an egg diluted with milk.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  3. Ice while hot with plain frosting.

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. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it an airy crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and help set the crumb when baked.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a soft texture in the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness and helps the crumb brown.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or lose its shape in the oven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, flour, egg, butter, currant, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg, butter, currant, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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