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Bread

Plain Buns

A simple yeast bread bun made with flour, sugar, yeast, milk, butter, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Buns

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Plain Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA good brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. In a basin, mix the flour and sugar well.

  2. Make a well in the center, then stir in the yeast and lukewarm milk until it reaches the thickness of cream.

  3. Cover the basin with a cloth and let the sponge rise in a warm place for about 1.5 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Melt the butter without letting it boil, then stir it into the mixture, adding more milk if necessary to form a soft dough.

  2. Shape the dough into buns about the size of an egg and place them in rows 3 inches apart.

  3. Let them rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  4. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  5. Once baked, brush the tops with a little milk.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 gluten network that gives the buns their structure.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds softness and browning.

The step that matters

Let the sponge rise fully. The yeast needs time in a warm place to ferment the sugar and build gas and flavour. Rising too briefly or in a cold spot leaves the dough dense and under-risen.

“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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