Skip to main content
Dessert

Glazed Buns

A yeast roll glazed with a corn starch and sugar coating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Glazed Buns

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. Soften the yeast in the cold water.

  2. Add the softened yeast to the cream diluted with warm water.

  3. Stir in 1½ cups of flour.

  4. Beat thoroughly, cover, and let rise until light and puffy.

  5. Add the egg, butter, sugar, salt, currants, and enough flour to make a soft dough.

  6. Knead until elastic, then cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured board and pat into a sheet ⅝ inch thick.

  2. Cut into rounds and place in a well-oiled pan.

  3. Let rise until light, then bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 25 minutes.

Glaze and finish

  1. Dilute the corn starch with cold water.

  2. Pour the diluted corn starch over nearly 1 cup of boiling water, stir, and cook until boiling.

  3. Let simmer until the buns are nearly baked, then brush with the starch and dredge with granulated sugar.

  4. Return to the oven and repeat the starch and sugar application three or more times.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the buns their body.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough set and bind.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the dough a softer, moister crumb.
Corn starch
Forms a thin cooked starch coating that gives the glaze its sheen and stickiness.

The step that matters

Cooking the corn starch glaze until boiling. Starch must be fully cooked until it boils so it thickens and gelatinizes; undercooked starch stays cloudy and runny and will not form a glossy coating on the buns.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, egg, butter, sugar, corn. 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.

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes