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Plain Buns

Plain buns are soft yeast breads made with flour, sugar, yeast, milk, butter, and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Buns

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 ↓

Plain Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA good brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and sugar together.

  2. Make a well in the center of the mixture.

  3. Stir in the yeast and 4 cups of lukewarm milk, adding enough flour to achieve a cream‑like consistency.

  4. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the sponge rise in a warm place for about 14 hours.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter without letting it oil.

  2. Stir the melted butter into the mixture, adding more milk if necessary to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into buns the size of eggs.

  2. Place the buns 3 inches apart on a baking sheet.

  3. Let the buns rise in a warm place until they double in size.

  4. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  5. Once baked, brush the tops with a little milk.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that the dough sets around as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, which leavens the buns and makes them airy.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and forms a soft dough.
Moist sugar
Feeds the yeast during the rise and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Melt the butter without letting it oil. If butter overheats and separates, its fat and water split, so it blends poorly into the dough and can make the texture greasy or uneven.

“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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