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Dessert

London Buns

A sweet yeast‑free bun with sultanas, lemon peel, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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London Buns

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 ↓

London 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub together the flour, sugar, lard, and butter in a bowl.

  3. Add a little salt, sultanas, and finely chopped lemon rind and peel.

  4. Stir in the baking soda and tartaric acid.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs, then add them to the mixture.

  2. Mix to form a moist dough.

  3. Add a little milk as needed.

Bake and serve

  1. Place rocky heaps of the mixture on a greased baking tin.

  2. Bake for about 20 minutes.

  3. Dredge with sugar just before they are done.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 that holds the buns together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the buns as they bake.
Tartaric acid
Provides the acid that reacts with the baking soda to make the buns rise.
Butter
Adds fat that gives a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb short and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake soon after the baking soda and tartaric acid go in. Baking soda and tartaric acid start releasing carbon dioxide as soon as they are wet and mixed. Shaping the heaps and getting them into the oven promptly keeps that gas in the dough, so the buns rise well instead of going flat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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