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Bread

Sally-lunn

A yeast bread dough made with eggs, butter, lard, sugar, and flour, baked in a 400°F oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.

Mix and rise

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Mix the yeast, butter, lard, sugar, and flour in a bowl at noon.

  3. Let the mixture rise.

  4. At 4 o'clock, add a small amount of flour and work the dough again.

Shape and rise again

  1. Place the dough into buttered pie pans and let it rise until ready for tea at 6 o'clock.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Yeast or sponge
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms gluten that gives the bread its structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

The final rise in the pans. Yeast keeps producing gas as the dough rises. If the dough is left too long before baking, the gas weakens the gluten structure, so the loaf may collapse or turn coarse. Check that it has risen before the oven is hot.

“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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