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Dessert

Sally Luns, or Bath Breakfast Cakes

A yeasted bread cake made with flour, butter, milk, yeast, eggs, and salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sally Luns, or Bath Breakfast Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Mix in the warm milk, yeast, and beaten eggs.

  3. Cover the mixture and let it rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into thick cakes about the size of a dinner plate.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Cut each cake into three slices to butter the middle and outer slices.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough and sets as it bakes.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas during the rise, making the dough light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure, richness, and moisture to the dough.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour, forming gluten and feeding the yeast.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. The yeast needs a warm, undisturbed period to produce gas. If the dough is too cold or rises too briefly, the cakes will be dense and heavy after baking.

“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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