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Kentucky Rolls

A yeast dough roll made with flour, buttermilk, lard, water, yeast, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kentucky Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 3 quarts of flour in a large pan.

  2. Scald 1 quart of buttermilk, add ½ cup of lard, pour over the flour, and beat well.

  3. Add 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of yeast, and set in a warm place overnight.

  4. In the morning, mix in 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar, adding flour to make a stiff dough.

  5. Let the dough rise twice, kneading thoroughly each time.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into long rolls, place in pans, and bake when light.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, tenderizing the dough and adding flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that softens the crumb and keeps the rolls tender.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise twice with thorough kneading. Kneading develops the gluten so the dough can trap the yeast's gas. Under-kneading or under-rising leaves the rolls dense, while the second rise builds the light texture.

“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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