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Dessert

Spanish Buns for Tea

A sweet, buttery bun flavored with almond water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Spanish Buns for Tea

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift the baking powder with the flour.

  3. Beat the eggs separately.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Stir in the cream and flour alternately with the beaten egg whites.

  4. Mix in the almond water.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

  2. Bake until golden.

  3. Cut into squares to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give lift and structure, while yolks add richness and help set the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the bun's crumb together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the buns rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the creamed sugar hold air.
Sugar
Sweetens the buns and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and flour alternately with the beaten egg whites. Folding gently in alternating additions keeps the beaten whites from deflating. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the buns tough and dense.

“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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