Skip to main content
Dessert

To Make Buns

A sweet, spiced yeast bread made with butter, sugar, coriander, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coriander and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,635 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Make Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine 5 pounds of all-purpose flour in a wooden bowl.

  2. Set a sponge with 1/2 cup of yeast and 1 pint of warm milk.

  3. Mix in 1 pound of sifted sugar, 1 pound of softened butter, coriander, cinnamon, and mace.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into buns.

  2. Place the buns on a baking sheet greased with a little butter.

  3. Let the buns rise in a warm place.

  4. Brush the buns with warm milk.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough that holds the buns together.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast, while adding softness and browning from its sugars and proteins.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the buns and helps the crust brown during baking.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich texture.

The step that matters

Let the sponge ferment before mixing in the rest. The sponge lets yeast multiply and start gas production before the sugar and fat are added, which helps the buns rise well. Fat and sugar can slow yeast activity if mixed in too early.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes