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Dessert

Sally Lunns

A sweet yeast roll made with flour, sugar, butter, yeast, milk, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sally Lunns

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 the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk.

  3. Add melted butter and beaten eggs to the yeast mixture.

  4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.

  5. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Shape the dough into small rounds and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden 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.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and brown.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast, while adding softness and browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown and sweeten.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time and warmth to produce gas. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse and lose its structure.

“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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