Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Bath Buns
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Rub the butter into the flour in a wooden bowl.
Add the sugar and caraway seeds to the mixture.
Beat the eggs in a basin, then add the yeast and warm milk.
Make a hole in the flour mixture and pour the milk mixture into it.
Stir to incorporate about one-third of the flour with the milk.
Cover the dough with a piece of flannel and let it prove in the oven for about 30 minutes.
Mix everything together and cover until the oven is ready.
Shape and bake
Shape the dough into buns and place them on a baking sheet.
Beat the remaining egg and brush it over the buns.
Top the buns with caraway sugar plums and let them rise in the oven for about 15 minutes.
Bake in the oven until golden brown, which will take just a few minutes.
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.
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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + plumtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together406 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, short crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that the dough builds around.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help bind the dough, and the beaten egg gives the buns a glossy, browned top.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Lump sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and yeast, forming the dough and adding softness.
The step that matters
Proving the dough in the oven. Yeast needs warm, draft-free conditions to rise well. If the oven is too hot, the yeast can be killed, and if the dough is not covered it can dry and form a skin, which limits its rise.
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, caraway, egg, milk):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, caraway, egg, 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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