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Bread

Sally Lunn, No. 1

A sweet yeast bread roll made with flour, butter, brown sugar, eggs, yeast, caraway seed, cinnamon, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 188 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sally Lunn, No. 1

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Warm the milk, butter, and brown sugar together.

  2. Mix the warm mixture with the flour, yeast, caraway seed, and cinnamon to form a soft dough.

Rise and bake

  1. Butter a pan.

  2. Place the dough in the pan, allowing it to rise without working it over for 3 hours.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes.

  4. Serve hot, buttered when eaten.

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. Caraway + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the bread's crumb together as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and hold its tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its sugars help the crust brown.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, moisture and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise without working it over. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build the bread's light, open texture. Knocking the dough back or handling it too much deflates the gas bubbles, which leads to a dense loaf.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, milk. 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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