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Dessert

Currant Bun

A yeast dough bun filled with currants, sweetened with sugar and flavored with mace and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Currant Bun

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Warm the cream in a double boiler, then remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the melted butter.

  3. Beat the eggs until light.

  4. Add the beaten eggs to the cream and butter mixture.

  5. Stir in the sugar.

  6. Dissolve the yeast in the water.

  7. Sift the flour into a bowl and make a hollow in the center.

  8. Add the dissolved yeast to the hollow, then combine with the cream mixture.

  9. Stir in the mace and cinnamon.

  10. Mix in the flour and yeast.

  11. Beat the mixture well for a few minutes.

  12. Fold in the currants.

Rise and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow baking pan.

  2. Let it rise for several hours until doubled in size.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

  4. Sprinkle with fine sugar when done.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 that holds the bun together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the bun set as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during the rise, making the bun light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, soft crumb.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb.
Currants
Add pockets of sweet, tart fruit flavor throughout the bun.

The step that matters

Let it rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and expand the dough. Under-proofing leaves the bun dense, while the structure needs that gas to bake up light.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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