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Sally Lunn

A sweet yeast bread with butter, milk, sugar, and eggs, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sally Lunn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Warm the butter in the milk.

  2. Add the salt, sugar, and sifted flour; beat thoroughly.

  3. When the mixture is blood warm, add the beaten eggs and yeast.

  4. Beat hard until the batter blisters.

  5. Set it to rise overnight.

Rise and bake

  1. In the morning, dissolve the baking soda and stir it into the batter.

  2. Turn the batter into a well-buttered shallow dish to rise for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned.

  4. Tear apart to serve; do not cut with a knife.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

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
Adds richness and a tender crumb while softening the dough.
Flour
Builds the batter's structure as gluten develops during beating.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the bread set and hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the bread its airy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to add extra lift and a lighter crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness, and helps the crumb brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat hard until the batter blisters. Vigorous beating develops gluten so the batter can trap gas from the yeast. Under-beating leaves a dense loaf that rises poorly.

“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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