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Dessert

Cranberry Roll

A steamed roll made from flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, sweet milk, cranberries, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cranberry Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Mix in enough sweet milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Roll out the dough thinly.

Fill and steam

  1. Spread cranberries and sugar over the dough.

  2. Roll it up and place in a pudding cloth.

  3. Steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet or hard sauce.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the dough that holds the roll together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the dough rise.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a soft, workable dough.
Cranberries
Add tartness and moisture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart cranberries and helps balance their acidity.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thinly. A thin, even sheet keeps the roll light and cooks through during steaming. Thick dough stays dense and gummy in the centre, and uneven thickness makes the filling leak or cook unevenly.

“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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