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Plain Buns

Plain buns are yeast-leavened dough baked into soft, lightly sweetened buns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Buns

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Plain Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Combine 4 pounds of sifted flour and 1 pound of sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Make a cavity in the center of the mixture.

  3. Stir in ½ cup of yeast and 1 pint of lukewarm milk until the mixture is the thickness of cream.

  4. Cover and let the mixture sit for 2 hours.

  5. Melt 1 pound of butter until it becomes an oil but is not hot.

  6. Stir the melted butter into the mixture along with enough warm milk to create a soft paste.

  7. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough.

  8. Let the dough rest for 1 hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Prepare a baking sheet by rubbing it with butter.

  2. Shape the dough into buns the size of a large egg.

  3. Place the buns 3 inches apart on the baking sheet.

  4. Set the buns in a warm place for 30 minutes or until they double in size.

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

  6. Brush the buns with milk when removed from the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 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. 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
Provides the structure that holds the dough and buns together as they rise and bake.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light and airy.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds softness and browning to the crust.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives the buns a rich flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Melting the butter without overheating it. Butter should be liquid but not hot, because very hot fat can damage developing yeast and cause the dough to rise poorly.

“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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