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Bread

For Breakfast

Egg bread rolls made with flour, yeast, milk, egg yolks, butter, and salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

For Breakfast

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. Mix yeast with ½ pint warm milk and a fourth of the flour in a bowl.

  2. Set aside to rise.

  3. Add 2 egg yolks, ¼ teaspoon salt, and melted 2 ounces butter mixed with a little milk to the risen mixture.

  4. Gradually add the remaining flour to form a dough that is not too soft.

Shape and rise

  1. Butter an iron plate.

  2. Shape the dough into rolls the size of eggs and place them close together on the plate.

  3. Let the rolls rise in a warm place until light and beginning to crack.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  2. Wash the tops with a little milk.

  3. Cut in half, butter, and serve for breakfast or tea.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 dough's structure as gluten develops when kneaded and risen.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness, and help the dough brown.
Butter
Adds fat for softness and a richer flavour in the rolls.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and helps the tops brown.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise until light and beginning to crack. Under-proofed rolls stay dense and heavy, while over-proofed rolls may collapse in the oven. Watching for a light, airy look before baking gives the yeast time to build the right 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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