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Hovis Welsh Buns

A yeasted bread roll made with Hovis flour, butter, milk, sugar, and topped with rough sugar.

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 ↓

Hovis Welsh Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the Hovis flour and yeast.

  2. Melt the butter and warm the milk, then add to the flour mixture.

  3. Stir in the sugar until well combined.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth, then let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake the buns until golden brown.

  3. Brush the tops with warm milk and dip in rough sugar before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Hovis flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the buns their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Supplies moisture for the dough and helps the crust brown when brushed on top.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, adds sweetness, and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas for a light, airy crumb. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

“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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