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Bread

To Make Buns

A yeasted bread bun made with ale yeast, butter, caraway, and sweet wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Make 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 large bowl, combine flour, ale yeast, and sack.

  2. Add beaten eggs, warm milk, nutmeg, and salt; knead until smooth.

  3. Let the dough rise in a warm place until very light.

  4. Knead in fresh butter and caraway comfits.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough as desired and place on floured paper.

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

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. Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 dough's structure once kneaded with eggs and liquid.
Ale yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough.
Fresh butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Caraway comfits
Provide the characteristic caraway flavour and sweet crunch throughout the bun.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast needs a warm enough place and enough time to produce gas; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the gas trapped in the gluten network gives the buns their lightness.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, wine, egg, milk, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, wine, egg, milk, nutmeg, butter. 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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