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Dessert

Soda Buns

Soda buns are yeast‑free sweet buns made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, buttermilk, currants, lemon rind, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soda Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather 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. Sift the baking soda into the flour and mix well with a pinch of salt.

  3. Add the sugar, grated lemon rind, and currants or raisins.

Mix and bake

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the beaten eggs.

  2. Combine the butter mixture with the dry ingredients and add the buttermilk.

  3. Mix everything together until well combined.

  4. Spoon the mixture into buttered tins and bake immediately.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the buns as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the buns rise.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure to the buns.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps brown the outside of the buns.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking soda starts reacting with the buttermilk as soon as the wet and dry ingredients meet. Delaying the bake lets gas escape before the oven sets the structure, which can leave the buns flat and dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, butter, lemon, buttermilk):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, butter, lemon, buttermilk. 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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