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Bread

Geneva Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with milk, flour, butter, yeast, baking soda, and salt.

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 ↓

Geneva Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. Pour the scalded milk into a basin with the salt and butter.

  3. Stir in 1 pound of flour.

  4. Let the mixture cool to lukewarm.

  5. Add the yeast.

  6. Leave the mixture to rise until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Add the remaining flour.

  2. Let the dough rise again.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

  4. Knead the dissolved baking soda into the dough.

  5. Roll, cut, or form the dough into rolls.

  6. Place the rolls in buttered pans.

  7. Prick the rolls.

  8. Bake the rolls.

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).

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 dough its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins and sugars that soften the crumb and aid browning.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is a living organism, and very hot liquid can kill it before it has a chance to ferment. Cooling the mixture to lukewarm keeps the yeast active so the dough rises properly.

“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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