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Bath Buns

Sweet yeasted buns flavoured with caraway comfits and candied peel, baked on a tray.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Bath Buns

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. In a bowl, combine ½ cup of flour, egg yolks, and yeast.

  2. Beat well and set aside to rise in a warm place.

  3. In another bowl, rub the butter into the remaining flour.

  4. Add the sugar, a few comfits, and some sliced candied peel to the flour and butter.

  5. Once the egg and yeast mixture has risen, gradually mix it into the flour mixture.

  6. Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rise again in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into buns and place them on a buttered baking tray.

  2. Brush the tops with a mixture of egg yolk and milk, and arrange a few comfits on top.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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. Flour + buttertop 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the buns' shape as they rise and bake.
Egg yolks
Enrich the dough with fat and emulsifiers, giving a tender crumb and rich colour.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and grow light and airy.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast, and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise in a warm place. Yeast needs time and gentle warmth to ferment; if the dough is underproved it stays dense, and if overproved it can collapse or turn coarse and flat in the oven.

“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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