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Dessert

Sally Lunns

A yeast cake made with flour, butter, milk, egg, and yeast, baked in a greased tin.

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

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.

Prepare

  1. Grease two cake tins with 1 oz of dripping.

  2. In a saucepan, warm the butter and milk together, then pour over the yeast or barm.

  3. Mix the salt with the flour, beat the egg, and combine with a little warm milk.

Mix and rise

  1. Mix all ingredients well with a wooden spoon, then pour into the prepared tins.

  2. Place in a warm area to rise for one hour.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes.

  2. Turn out of the tins to cool.

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Forms the main structure of the cake as its gluten network sets during baking.
Yeast or barm
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the batter rise and gives the cake its light, open crumb.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the cake hold its shape as it bakes.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, softening the crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and activates the yeast.

The step that matters

Rising in a warm area. Yeast works best at warm temperatures. If the dough is too cold, it rises slowly and the cake may be dense; if too hot, the yeast can die and rising stalls.

“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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