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Most Excellent Buns

A sweet bun made with flour, butter, sugar, candied rind, nutmeg, cream, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Most Excellent Buns

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 dough

  1. In a bowl, work the flour and butter together until crumbly.

  2. Mix in the sugar, salt, candied rind, and nutmeg.

  3. Pour in the boiling cream or milk and mix slightly.

  4. Add the egg yolks and one egg white, then mix until well combined.

  5. Dust in the baking soda and mix until free of lumps.

Bake

  1. Grease a baking sheet with butter.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the sheet.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 25 minutes, until firm and golden.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the buns together as they bake.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as the buns bake.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture while setting it in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the mixture so the buns rise and turn lighter.
Boiling cream or milk
Moistens the dough and helps it come together into a soft mixture.

The step that matters

Dust in the baking soda and mix until free of lumps.. Baking soda must be evenly dispersed, because unmixed pockets cause uneven rising and patches that taste bitter or soapy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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