Skip to main content
Dessert

Madeira Buns

Madeira buns are sweet rolls made with flour, butter, eggs, sugar, ginger, caraway, nutmeg, sherry, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Caraway and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Madeira Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs and butter until creamy.

Make the batter

  1. Add the egg and butter mixture to the dry ingredients and beat for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in the sherry.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into tins and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Caraway + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + carawaytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 starch sets during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and its creaming traps air for a lighter crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the buns and helps them brown in the oven.
Sherry
Adds moisture and a distinctive aromatic flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture for 30 minutes. Long beating develops the structure of the batter and incorporates air, which helps the buns rise and gives a light, even crumb. Overbeating after the flour is added can toughen the texture, so the batter should be beaten steadily rather than vigorously for the full time.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, sugar, caraway, nutmeg, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes