Skip to main content
Bread

Parker House Rolls

A yeast roll made with milk, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast cake, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Parker House Rolls

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Parker House Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Pour the hot milk over the sugar and salt.

  2. When cool, add the yeast cake dissolved in lukewarm water.

  3. Beat in the flour thoroughly until combined.

  4. Let the mixture rise until light and bubbly.

  5. Add the butter and enough flour to knead the dough.

  6. Knead for about ten minutes.

  7. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the rolls and place them in a pan.

  2. Let the rolls rise until they double in size again.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for fifteen minutes.

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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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 dough structure to hold its risen shape.
Yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture of the rolls.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its sugars help the crust brown in the oven.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the rolls.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until it doubles in size. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while over-proofed dough collapses and loses structure. Yeast gas expansion sets the final crumb, so checking for doubled volume matters before shaping and baking.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipes