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Four Hour Buns with Fleischman’s Yeast

A yeast-leavened dough made with Fleischman's yeast cake, scalded milk, butter, sugar, salt, and flour, baked into buns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Four Hour Buns with Fleischman’s Yeast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast cake in ½ cup lukewarm water for about 10 minutes.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine salt, sugar, and butter.

  3. Pour the scalded milk over the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  4. Gradually add enough flour to make a batter, then add the dissolved yeast and beat for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Add more flour until the dough is stiff enough not to stick to your hands.

  6. Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few minutes.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise until it is nearly three times its size.

  2. Punch down the dough and let it rise again until it reaches the same size.

  3. Shape the dough into rolls or buns and let them rise in pans until nearly three times their size.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 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. Sugar + buttertop 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
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the buns their structure and stiffness.
Milk
Adds richness and softness, and its sugars help the crust brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Adding flour until the dough is stiff. Too little flour leaves a sticky dough that is hard to shape and can spread, while too much makes the buns dense and dry. Kneading develops the gluten that gives the dough its structure.

“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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