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Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are sweet rolls made with a light bread dough, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cinnamon Rolls

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Prepare light dough as for bread.

  2. Mix in shortening, egg, and sugar.

Shape the rolls

  1. Roll out to about ¼ inch thickness.

  2. Spread with butter, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Roll up and cut like a jelly cake.

  4. Place in pans like biscuits and let rise.

Bake

  1. Once risen, add a lump of butter, sugar, and cinnamon on each roll.

  2. Bake until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

Light dough for bread
Provides the soft, airy yeast-risen structure that holds the rolls together.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the crumb soft.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough, helping it bind and brown.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface caramelize to a golden color in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, melting into the filling for moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise before baking. Rolls baked before they have risen fully stay dense, because the yeast gas that gives lightness has not yet expanded the dough. Letting them rise until puffy gives a soft, open texture once baked.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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