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Dessert

Currant Buns, Seed Buns or Teacakes

A yeasted bun made with flour, lard, sugar, and optionally currants or caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Currant Buns, Seed Buns or Teacakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the currants if using.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, lard, and sugar.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Add the egg and caraway seeds or currants, and mix until combined.

Rise and shape

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

  2. Shape into buns and place on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 gluten network that gives the buns their structure.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough for a tender crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown during baking.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and yeast so the dough can develop and rise.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The yeast needs time to produce gas that expands the dough. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse and lose its structure.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, sugar. 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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