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Bread

Sally Lunn

Sally Lunn Bread is a yeasted bread made with flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.

  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, milk, beaten eggs, butter, and sugar.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture and stir well.

  4. Check the batter's consistency by dropping a spoonful back into the bowl; it should be smooth but not too thin or too stiff.

Rise and bake

  1. Transfer the batter to a buttered dish and let it rise.

  2. Prepare this mixture around dinner time for baking at supper.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen batter together after baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the bread set and hold its crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the bread its light texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps the crumb brown gently.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.

The step that matters

Checking the batter's consistency. Batter that is too thin will not hold its shape and batter that is too stiff will rise poorly and bake dense. The spoon test lets you judge the texture before the batter rises and bakes.

“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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