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White Mountain Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, and egg whites, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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White Mountain Rolls

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

White Mountain Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter and sugar in the boiling milk until it is warm.

  2. Mix in part of the flour, then add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Knead the dough until stiff and let it rise in a warm place overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, knead the dough into rolls and let them rise until light.

  2. Rub the beaten egg white over the tops of the rolls and bake for 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.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + milktop 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas during the rise, which makes the rolls light and airy.
Egg whites
Whipped foam adds lift and structure, and brushed on tops helps browning.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps build a soft, tender dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lift the dough. Rising too briefly gives dense rolls, while over-proofing can cause them to 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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