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Parker House Rolls

A sweet roll made with sweet milk, lard, sugar, sponge, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

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. Scald the sweet milk with the lard and sugar.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add the light sponge.

  3. Stir in enough flour to create a thin dough.

  4. Allow the dough to rise until light, then stir it down lightly.

  5. Let it rise again, then roll out and cut into desired shapes.

Bake

  1. Let the rolls rest for an hour before baking in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + 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

Sweet milk
Provides liquid and moisture that hydrates the flour into a workable dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
Light sponge
Live yeast culture that leavens the dough so it rises and becomes light.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or lose structure.

“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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