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Dessert

Richer Buns

A sweet yeast bread with currants and candied peel, enriched with butter and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Richer Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Melt the butter and sugar in ½ pint of new milk.

  2. Mix ½ pint of warm milk with 1 cup of yeast and strain it into the melted mixture.

  3. Add enough flour to create a thin batter.

  4. Pour the batter into a well in the remaining 2 pounds of flour.

  5. Sprinkle flour over the mixture.

  6. Cover it.

  7. Let it rise.

Make the dough

  1. If using, add allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, or caraway seeds to the flour before mixing.

  2. Rub the butter into a cream.

  3. Work the cream into the flour.

  4. Mix in the yeast mixture.

  5. Add the washed and dried currants and candied peel to the dough last.

  6. Add enough warm milk to form a soft paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop pieces of the paste onto buttered tins.

  2. Allow them to take their own shape.

  3. Sprinkle caraway seeds on top.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough as its proteins develop into gluten when mixed with liquid.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the batter, producing gas that makes the buns rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the buns set and hold their shape while baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, softening the crumb and adding flavour.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the buns.

The step that matters

Let the sponge rise fully before mixing the dough. Yeast needs time to ferment the batter and build gas and flavour. Under-proofed sponge gives dense buns, so the rise should finish before the butter and flour are worked in.

Swap the allspice

The recipe marks allspice as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, flour, currant, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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