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Tea Rolls

A soft yeast roll made with flour, eggs, butter, milk, yeast, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tea Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the melted butter into the sifted flour.

  2. Beat the eggs well with 1 cup of milk, then mix into the flour, adding more milk if necessary to achieve a soft dough.

  3. Stir the sugar into the yeast, then incorporate this mixture into the dough using a wooden spoon until fully combined.

  4. Set the dough to rise in a warm place until very light.

Shape and rise

  1. Shape the dough into rolls quickly and lightly, handling as little as possible.

  2. Place the rolls in rows in a baking pan, just close enough to touch.

  3. Cover lightly with a cloth and let rise again until they begin to plump, about 15 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the rolls their structure.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough, contributing to a tender crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the gluten can form a soft, workable dough.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast so it becomes active and drives the rise.

The step that matters

Shape the dough quickly and lightly. Handling and kneading develop gluten and degas the dough, so overworking makes the rolls dense and tough. Keeping the shaping brief preserves the air the yeast built up during the first rise.

“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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