Skip to main content
Dessert

Bath-buns

A sweet bun with preserved cedrat, baked until golden brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Bath-buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Let the butter soften to room temperature.

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter with a spoon.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Gradually mix in the baking soda, sugar, flour, and milk until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Scoop the mixture into equal pieces the size of a nut.

  2. Place the pieces on a baking sheet, leaving space between them.

  3. Top each piece with a pinch of preserved cedrat.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the buns cold.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the buns a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to produce gas, helping the buns rise and lighten.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for sweetness and to help browning in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps it come together with the flour.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid to react fully and release gas; if it is unevenly mixed, pockets of soda can leave bitter, patchy spots and uneven rising in the buns.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes