Skip to main content
Dessert

Sally Lunn

A sweet yeast cake made with milk, eggs, butter, sugar, and flour, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a 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 milk and melt the butter in it.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs, salt, yeast, and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Let the batter rise overnight.

  4. In the morning, add the sugar and mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into thin round cakes and let rise for 4 hours.

  2. Brush with egg and sprinkle a little sugar on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the egg brush gives the top a glossy finish.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight and final rises, leavening the batter so the cakes become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and a rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that holds the risen batter together as a stiff dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise overnight. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas and develop flavour. A batter that rises too little stays dense, while one that rises too long can collapse and turn sour. Watching the batter, not just the clock, helps the cakes rise well.

“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.

More sally lunn recipes

Bread 162Cake 69Bun 20Muffins 7Pancake 7Pudding 6 See all 31 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes