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Parker House Rolls

A yeast roll made with milk, sugar, lard, flour, salt, and yeast, rolled and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Parker House Rolls

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Parker House Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in lukewarm milk.

  2. Add lard or butter and one and one-half pints of flour.

  3. Beat until perfectly smooth.

  4. Cover and let rise in a warm place one hour, or until light.

  5. Add remainder of flour, or enough to make a dough, and the salt.

  6. Knead well.

  7. Place in greased bowl.

  8. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about one and one-half hours, or until double in bulk.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out one-fourth inch thick.

  2. Brush over lightly with butter.

  3. Cut with a two-inch biscuit cutter.

  4. Crease through center heavily with dull edge of knife, and fold over in pocket book shape.

  5. Place in well-greased, shallow pans, one inch apart.

  6. Cover and let rise until light, about three-quarters of an hour.

  7. Bake ten minutes in hot oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

768Calories
21 gProtein
22 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Milk and flour 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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, hydrating the flour to form a soft dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until double in bulk. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Rising too short leaves dense rolls, while the final bake depends on well-risen shaped dough.

“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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