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Dessert

Sally Luns

A yeast-based sweet roll with butter, sugar, eggs, and a frosting of egg white and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Sally Luns

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Set a sponge at 9 o'clock at night with warmed milk and yeast; stir in enough flour to mix smoothly.

  2. When the sponge is very light the next morning, cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and mix it into the sponge along with the egg mixture.

  4. Gradually sift in enough flour to make a stiff batter that can be stirred with a wooden spoon.

Shape and rise

  1. Let the batter rise again until very light, then pinch off pieces slightly larger than an egg and shape them gently.

  2. Place the shaped dough on buttered paper in pans, ensuring they do not touch each other, and let them rise again.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until very slightly brown.

  2. Frost with a mixture of egg white and sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 sponge, producing gas that makes the dough light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the dough a rich texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown lightly in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to add lift and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter and shaped dough together.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before shaping and baking. Yeast needs time to build gas and lightness; shaping or baking before the dough is very light leaves rolls dense. Leaving space between pieces lets each one expand without merging.

“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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