Skip to main content
Main

To Make Buns

A yeasted bun made with ale yeast, caraway, butter, and nutmeg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and caraway 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 ↓

To Make Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, ale yeast, and sack.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, warm milk, nutmeg, and salt, and knead until smooth.

  3. Let the dough rise in a warm place until it is very light.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead in the fresh butter and caraway comfits until well incorporated.

  2. Shape the dough as desired and place on floured paper.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 bread together as it rises and bakes.
Ale yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the dough set and brown in the oven.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Caraway comfits
Add aromatic flavour and visible spice through the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast needs enough time in a warm place to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the rise sets the final light texture.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes