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Dessert

Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon buns made from light bread dough, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Reserve 1 quart of light bread dough.

  2. Work in 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, and a little cinnamon.

  3. Roll the dough to 1 inch thick and cut into shapes.

  4. Let the shapes rise.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until nearly done.

  2. Spread a mixture of cinnamon and sugar dissolved in a little water over the tops.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Light bread dough
Provides the soft, airy yeasted structure that rises and bakes into the bun.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the dough and gives a richer crumb.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the dough and the topping.

The step that matters

Let the shapes rise. Rising lets the yeast produce gas that expands the dough. Under-proofed buns stay dense, while over-proofed ones may collapse or lose shape in the oven.

“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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