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Bread

Sally Lunn with Yeast

A yeast‑leavened bread made with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

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 with Yeast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, melted butter, sugar, salt, yeast, and enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  2. Cover the mixture and let it sit overnight.

Shape, rise and bake

  1. The next morning, add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  2. Divide the dough into two buttered pans and place in a warm area to rise.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Egg + flourtop 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, which leavens the dough and makes it rise.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and enriches the flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps browning through its milk sugars.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, feeds the yeast, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise in a warm area. Yeast activity drives the rise and depends on temperature. A cool spot slows fermentation, while overheating can kill the yeast. Either way the crumb turns out dense or uneven.

“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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