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Parker House Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, milk, butter, sugar, and yeast, baked after two rises.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Parker House Rolls

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 ↓

Parker House Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, make a hollow in 1 quart of flour.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of butter.

  3. Pour 1 pint of boiling milk over the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture stand until lukewarm.

  5. Dissolve 1 yeast cake in a little warm water.

  6. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture.

  7. Stir in enough flour to make a sponge.

  8. Cover the mixture.

  9. Place the mixture in a warm area to rise until full of bubbles.

  10. Mix in more flour to make a stiff dough.

  11. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut down the dough with a knife.

  2. Pat or roll the dough out to ½ inch thick.

  3. Brush the dough with melted butter.

  4. Cut the dough with a biscuit cutter.

  5. Crease the cut dough with a blunt edge of a knife.

  6. Fold the dough over.

  7. Cover the folded dough with a cloth.

  8. Let the dough rise until light.

  9. Brush the dough with melted butter or egg.

  10. Bake for 20 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. 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 structure of the dough once it is mixed with liquid and kneaded into a stiff dough.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light and bubbly.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps give the rolls a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and browns the crust when brushed on top.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Rising too short leaves dense rolls, while the second rise after folding sets the final airy texture.

“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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