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Bread

Batll Buns

A yeasted bun with butter, sugar, caraway seeds, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Batll 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. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the yeast and liquids, then mix well and cover for at least 1 hour.

Shape the buns

  1. Once risen, mix in the sugar, eggs, and seeds lightly for a few minutes.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking tray.

  3. Sprinkle the tops with crushed sugar or caraway comfits.

Bake and finish

  1. For better results, place the shaped buns over boiling water for 30 minutes before baking.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. Optionally, glaze with a mixture of sugar and water before dredging with sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 structure of the buns as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas during the rest, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add moisture, richness, and structure that helps hold the buns together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown during baking.
Caraway seeds
Provide the distinctive aroma and flavour that defines the buns.

The step that matters

Mixing in the sugar, eggs, and seeds after the rise. Mix only lightly. Vigorous mixing at this point knocks out the gas the yeast built up, which leaves the buns dense instead of light.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Carawaythe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

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