Skip to main content
Bread

New Orleans Rolls

A soft, sweet roll made from bread sponge, sugar, butter, milk, and salt, shaped into knots and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

New Orleans Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the milk, sugar, butter, and salt with the bread sponge.

  2. Add flour to form a medium dough.

  3. Let the dough rise once, then shape into rolls.

Shape the rolls

  1. Break the dough into 2‑ounce pieces and roll into long strings.

  2. Twist the strings into knots and place on baking pans so they touch.

  3. Brush the ends with melted lard to help them separate during baking.

Proof and bake

  1. Let the rolls proof, then bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Bread sponge
Provides the fermented base that makes the dough rise and gives it flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving a softer, more tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the dough structure that traps gas and holds the rolls' shape.
Melted lard
Brushed on the ends so the knots separate and don't fuse while baking.

The step that matters

Placing the knots on the pans. Knots must be spaced so they touch but the brushed ends stay separate; if they fuse, the rolls bake together and lose their shape as they rise and expand in the oven.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipes