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Dessert

Soda Buns

Soda buns are sweet, leavened buns made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, baking powder, baking soda, and mixed peel.

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

Soda Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the butter or dripping to a cream.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  3. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks.

  4. Add the yolks to the milk and shred the mixed peel.

  5. Gradually add the milk mixture and sugar to the creamed fat, beating well.

  6. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently fold them in along with the baking powder.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the buns roughly with two forks and place them on a greased baking sheet.

  2. Sprinkle with castor sugar and decorate with a little peel.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

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 + 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 main structure that holds the buns together as they bake.
Butter or clarified dripping
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and creating a short, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure, with whipped whites helping the buns lighten.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the mixture to produce gas that helps the buns rise.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift as the buns heat in the oven.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lift, so they should be folded in gently with the baking powder. Vigorous stirring knocks out the air and leaves the buns dense.

“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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