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Cross Buns

A sweet yeast bread roll shaped into a cross, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,635 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cross Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Warm the flour in a wooden bowl.

  2. Melt the butter in the milk until warm.

  3. Mix the warm milk with the yeast and salt.

  4. Combine the mixture with the flour to form a paste.

Shape and rise

  1. Shape into buns and place on a tin.

  2. Cover with flannel and let rise for 15 minutes.

Bake

  1. Make a shallow cross on top of each bun before baking.

  2. Brush with warm milk.

  3. Bake until golden brown at 350°F (175°C).

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. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fine flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once combined with liquid.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the buns a richer, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast releases gas as it works, and that gas is what lifts and lightens the buns. If the dough has not risen enough, the buns will bake up dense.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

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