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French Rolls and Butter

A yeast dough roll baked until golden and brushed with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Rolls and Butter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, yeast, and salt.

  2. Add warm water gradually to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

  4. Let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Let the rolls rise again until puffy.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  4. Brush with melted butter before serving.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and the dough becomes workable.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and browns to give a golden finish.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time and warmth to produce gas, which inflates the dough. Rising too short leaves rolls dense; the dough needs to be visibly bigger before shaping.

“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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