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Buns

A sweet bun filled with raspberry jam, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,014 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Put flour and salt in a bowl.

  2. Rub in the margarine and lard.

  3. Add sugar and baking powder.

  4. Beat the egg and mix with milk, then combine with the flour to form a stiff paste.

Shape and fill

  1. Cut into even-sized pieces and shape each into a ball.

  2. Make a hole in the center of each ball and fill with a teaspoon of raspberry jam.

  3. Close the opening and place on a greased baking tin.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  2. When cooked, turn out onto greaseproof paper sprinkled with castor sugar.

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 + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the dough once combined with liquid and fat.
Margarine and lard
Fat that shortens the dough, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the stiff paste.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the buns rise and stay light.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and a light sugary finish on the cooked buns.
Raspberry jam
Provides the sweet, fruity filling that flavours each bun.

The step that matters

Closing the openings around the jam. If the hole is not sealed tightly, jam can leak out and burn on the tin during baking. A well-sealed ball keeps the filling inside as the dough expands in the oven.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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

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