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Sandwich Buns

A yeast bread roll made with sweet milk, flour, yeast, shortening, sugar, and salt, baked after two rises.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sandwich Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cool the milk until lukewarm.

  2. Add the yeast and sugar. Mix until dissolved.

  3. Warm the flour.

  4. Make a nest in the center. Pour the liquid ingredients into the nest.

  5. Mix in ⅔ of the flour.

  6. Add the melted shortening and salt.

  7. Continue to mix and knead the dough until smooth.

Rise and shape

  1. Place the dough in a covered bowl.

  2. Let it rise until doubled in bulk.

  3. Press down and turn it over.

  4. Let it rise again until ready to fall.

  5. Squeeze off pieces to form rolls.

  6. Set them far apart on a greased baking sheet.

  7. Make a crease generously on top of each roll.

  8. Let them rise until doubled in size before baking.

Bake and finish

  1. Brush the rolls with milk or water as they come out of the oven.

  2. Cover with a cloth while cooling.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 gluten network that gives the buns their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its sugars support browning on the crust.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the buns soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled before baking. Yeast gas must fill the gluten network to give light, open buns. Rising too little leaves dense rolls, while over-proofing lets the structure collapse and the rolls flatten.

“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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