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Dessert

Scotch Currant Bun

A yeasted bun made with flour, butter, raisins, currants, spices, and baked for about three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scotch Currant Bun

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and ¾ pound of flour with 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

  3. Add enough water to form a paste and line a greased cake tin, reserving some paste for the top.

Fill and bake

  1. In another bowl, mix 1 pound of flour, ½ pound of sugar, raisins, currants, orange peel, almonds, ginger, cinnamon, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and cream of tartar.

  2. Add enough milk to moisten the mixture and pour it into the lined tin, smoothing the top.

  3. Wet the edges and place the reserved paste on top.

  4. Prick the top all over with a fork and brush with beaten egg.

  5. Bake for about 3 hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make a short, tender paste for the crust.
Currants
Provide fruit bulk and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the bun rise and lighten.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the crust and filling together as they bake.
Egg
Brushed on top to encourage browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Bake for about 3 hours. A long, low bake at 300°F lets the dense filling cook through to the centre without the crust over-browning or drying. Pulling it early leaves a raw, soft middle.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, orange, almond, ginger):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, orange, almond, ginger. 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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