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Dessert

Scotch Bun

A sweet pastry with raisins, currants, mixed peel, almonds, spices, baked in a buttered tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch Bun

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix the fruit

  1. Combine 1 pound flour, ½ pound sugar, raisins, currants, mixed peel, almonds, ginger, allspice, black pepper, baking soda, cream of tartar, and milk in a large bowl, then mix thoroughly with your hands.

Make the paste

  1. Rub 1½ cups flour and butter together until crumbly.

  2. Add baking powder and mix to form a fine paste with water.

  3. Roll out the paste thinly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking tin, reserving some paste for the top.

  2. Pour the fruit mixture into the lined tin.

  3. Flatten the top of the fruit mixture.

  4. Wet the edges of the tin.

  5. Cover with the reserved paste.

  6. Brush the top with egg white.

  7. Bake for 2½ hours at 300°F (150°C).

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 fruit and the pastry together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown as the bun bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the fruit mixture.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture to the fruit mixture.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that makes the pastry rich and crumbly rather than tough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas that helps the bun rise.

The step that matters

Bake low and slow for the full time. A dense fruit mixture needs sustained gentle heat so the centre cooks through and sets. A hotter oven would brown and harden the outside before the middle is done.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, almond, ginger, allspice, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, almond, ginger, allspice, pepper. 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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