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Dessert

To Make Buns

A yeast-based bun made with toddy, butter, spices, currants, and sugar, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Buns

six buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the rolong, toddy, and warm milk together.

  2. Cover and let it sit in the sun until risen.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, salt, spices, currants, and sugar to the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into six round cakes.

  2. Brush each bun with egg white.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Rolong
Provides the fermentable base that lets the dough rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, tenderer crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough and set the crumb.
Currants
Add sweetness and fruity pockets within the bun.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise in the sun until risen. Rising depends on the fermentation of the base, which is slow and variable. Underproofed dough stays dense, while overproofed dough collapses and loses structure, so the dough should be checked for a clear increase in volume before shaping.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, sugar. 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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