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Dessert

Soda Buns

A quick, sweet bread-like bun made with butter, flour, sugar, mixed peel, baking soda, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Soda Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk 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. Rub the butter into the flour, then add the sugar and mixed peel.

Mix and bake

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk, let it cool, then mix it with the flour mixture.

  2. Drop in the egg yolks and egg whites, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet and bake 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Butter
Coats flour particles to keep the buns tender and rich.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the buns together as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the buns brown in the oven.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide gas to lighten the mixture and aid browning.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the mixture.
Egg whites
Add moisture and help set the structure as the buns bake.

The step that matters

Let the baking soda mixture cool before combining. Baking soda begins releasing gas as soon as it is dissolved in liquid. If the mixture is still warm, the gas forms faster and the lift may fade before the buns reach the oven, so letting it cool keeps the rise steady during baking.

“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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