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Dessert

Sally Lunn

A yeasted sweet bun made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and a quarter of a yeast cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sally Lunn

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 batter

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Gradually add the creamed butter and sugar to the eggs.

  3. Add the yeast.

  4. Stir in enough flour to make a rather stiff batter.

  5. Set the batter to rise for about 6 to 8 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. After rising, stir in a little more flour.

  2. Beat the mixture smooth.

  3. Pour it into a bowl or muffin tins.

  4. Let it rise for about 30 minutes.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  6. Serve hot.

  7. Cut into thick slices.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter hold its rise as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, softening the crumb and giving a richer flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the bun and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, leavening the batter into a light, airy bun.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the batter its structure and crumb.

The step that matters

Long first rise. The batter needs its full 6 to 8 hours to ferment; under-proofing leaves the yeast too little time to leaven it, producing a dense bun.

“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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