Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 98,233 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Parker House Rolls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift 2 quarts of flour.
In a bowl, combine 2 tablespoons melted butter, 2 tablespoons sugar, a little salt, and warm milk; whisk together.
Add 1 dissolved yeast cake to the mixture; when it is light, add the sifted flour and mould the dough for twenty minutes.
Shape and rise
Let the dough rise again.
Roll the dough out; cut into thin cakes.
Butter the top of each cake and fold them half over; set to rise again.
Bake
Bake.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour (in the method)
- Forms the gluten network that traps gas and gives the rolls their structure.
- Yeast cake
- Feeds on sugar and releases carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise and become light.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb and aiding browning on the surface.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds mild sweetness and browning.
The step that matters
Adding the flour once the yeast mixture is light. A light, bubbly mixture shows the yeast is active, so the dough will rise well. The dough must then rise fully before shaping and again after folding, because the trapped gas is what makes the rolls soft and airy.
“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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