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Dessert

Spanish Buns

A sweet yeast bun flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, rose water, and wine, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the yeast, rose water, wine, eggs, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Mix in enough milk to create a batter that drops from a spoon.

  4. Let the mixture rise in a warm place overnight.

Rise and bake

  1. The next morning, stir the batter lightly.

  2. Pour the batter into shallow tin pans and smooth the tops with a knife.

  3. Cover and let rise in a warm place again.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Finish

  1. Once cool, ice the buns or sift sugar over them.

  2. Cut into squares with a sharp knife.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter and buns together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, lightening the batter and giving it an airy texture.
Eggs
Add structure, richness, and moisture that set during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise twice. The yeast needs warm, unhurried time to produce gas; rising too briefly or too cool leaves the buns dense. Overlong rising can exhaust the yeast and cause collapse.

“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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