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Plain Buns

Plain buns are yeast‑leavened bread rolls made with flour, yeast, sugar, milk, butter, and salt.

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 good brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Mix salt and sugar with flour in a pan, making a hole in the center.

  2. Warm the milk until lukewarm.

  3. Mix the warm milk with the yeast.

  4. Pour the mixture into the center of the flour.

  5. Stir to make a thick cream.

  6. Cover the pan with a cloth.

  7. Let the sponge rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

Shape and rise

  1. Melt the butter without oiling it.

  2. Stir the melted butter into the mixture with enough warm milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Shape the dough into buns.

  4. Place the buns on floured tins about 3 inches apart.

  5. Let the buns rise in a warm place until they double in size.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Brush the buns with a little milk before they are done.

  3. Return the buns to the oven to 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.

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 together and sets when baked.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the sponge and buns rise and gives them a light texture.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and softens the crumb, and browns the crust when brushed on.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives the buns richness.
Moist sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the sponge and buns rise in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to become active; if the sponge or shaped buns stay cold, they rise slowly or not at all, leaving dense buns.

“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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