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Bread

French Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with milk, sugar, yeast, salt, eggs, butter, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. When lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast cake and 1½ cups of flour, then beat well.

  3. Cover and let rise until light.

  4. Add sugar and salt.

  5. Add beaten eggs.

  6. Add melted butter.

  7. Add enough flour to knead the dough, then knead the dough.

  8. Let it rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape it into small biscuits.

  2. Place the biscuits in rows on a board.

  3. Cover with a cloth.

  4. Let rise until light.

  5. Roll each biscuit on a floured board until six inches long.

  6. Place rolls 1½ inches apart on a buttered baking sheet.

  7. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 400°F (200°C), reducing the heat after the first 5 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and the rolls stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for softness and a tender crumb, plus richer flavour and browning.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning on the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light before shaping. Yeast needs time to ferment and build gas for lightness; shaping or baking too early leaves dense rolls with less volume.

“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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