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Dessert

Madeira Buns

A sweet bun flavored with ginger, caraway, nutmeg, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Caraway and nutmeg 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 ↓

Madeira Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the eggs and butter until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and butter mixture to the flour mixture and beat for 30 minutes.

  3. Finally, stir in the sherry.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into tins and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + carawaytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the buns together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and flavour to the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter when beaten with butter.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the buns bake.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a distinctive aromatic flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for 30 minutes. Long beating incorporates air and develops gluten in the flour, which affects the final texture. Beating too little leaves the buns dense, while overworking can make them tough, so keep an eye on the batter's texture as you go.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, sugar, caraway, nutmeg, sherry):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, sugar, caraway, nutmeg, sherry. 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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