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Dessert

To Make Buns

A yeast-based sweet bun flavored with coriander, cinnamon, and mace, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Make 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a wooden bowl, combine 5 pounds of flour with ½ cup of yeast and 1 pint of warm milk to create a sponge.

  2. Mix in 1 pound of sifted sugar, 1 pound of softened butter, and the ground coriander, cinnamon, and mace.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the mixture into buns and place them on a baking sheet greased with a little butter.

  2. Let the buns rise in a warm place, then brush them with warm milk.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the buns together.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour and helps the yeast activate; brushing adds a soft, browned surface.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and provides food for the yeast, aiding browning.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spice flavours.

The step that matters

Letting the buns rise in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce gas; if the buns rise too little they stay dense, and if they rise too long they can collapse or lose structure.

Swap the mace

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

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

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