Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Cherry Tea Buns
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the egg, Plasmon, butter, baking powder, sugar, dried cherries, flour, and angelica.
Add milk gradually to form a soft dough.
Bake
Spoon the mixture into small greased tins.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + angelicatop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together104 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Forms the main structure of the buns as the batter sets in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps the buns set and hold their shape.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the buns rise and become lighter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the buns brown as they bake.
- Dried cherries
- Provide chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and flavour throughout the buns.
The step that matters
Add milk gradually to form a soft dough. Adding too much milk at once makes the mixture wet and slack, so the buns may spread and lose shape. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the dough is soft but still holds together.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Angelicathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk. 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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