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Bread

Scotch Bread

A sweet, buttery bread made with butter, flour, egg yolk, and sugar, baked until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour until thoroughly mixed.

  2. Add the egg yolk and sugar, then mix and knead until a smooth, stiff dough forms.

  3. Sprinkle a little sugar on a clean surface and shape the dough into a flat, round cake to fit a pie pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Crimp the edges like a pie, cut into sections, and prick with a fork.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour or longer until delicately brown.

  3. Let cool completely before breaking apart.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Coats the flour and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough and adds richness and colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during slow baking.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until only delicately brown. A slow oven dries the dough gradually, producing a crisp, crumbly texture. Higher heat would brown the outside before the centre sets and dries, risking a dense or burnt result.

“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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