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Bread

Sally Lunns

A yeast bread made with flour, milk, butter, egg, yeast, sugar, and salt, baked in tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Sally Lunns

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.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the milk.

  2. Pour part of the milk mixture into the creamed yeast and add to the center of the flour.

  3. Add the salt and mix into a smooth dough with the beaten egg and remaining milk.

  4. Knead well and set to rise for one hour in three greased round tins, covered with a cloth.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. Glaze with a mixture of 2 teaspoons sugar dissolved in 4 teaspoons milk.

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. Milk + buttertop 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

Fine flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and crumb.
German yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, smooth dough.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough and helps bind it.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavor.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lift the dough. If the rise is cut short, the loaves stay dense and heavy after baking.

“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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