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Bread

Sally Lunn

A sweet, yeast-free bread roll made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, and butter.

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

Sally Lunn

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Add sweet milk and mix thoroughly.

  4. Combine flour and baking powder in another bowl.

  5. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  6. Melt butter and fold into batter.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the bread as its proteins set with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the bread rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the finished crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture. Adding the flour mixture slowly and stirring until smooth prevents lumps and overworking. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the bread tough, while thorough blending keeps the batter even so it rises uniformly.

“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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