Name: Sallie Lunn Breakfast Bread
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 cup butter; 2 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 1 quart flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 pint sweet milk

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 ↓

Sallie Lunn Breakfast Bread

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, and salt.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.
Sift in the cream of tartar and flour, mixing until combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into shallow pans.
Bake for 20 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the bread together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the crumb.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Cream of tartar: Provides acidity that activates the baking soda for rising.
Sweet milk: Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the leavening.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk before adding it. Baking soda needs to be evenly dissolved so it reacts uniformly with the acid. Unevenly distributed leavening can leave pockets of bitterness or dense, uneven rising.

“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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Sallie Lunn Breakfast Bread