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Plain Rolls

A simple yeast roll made with milk, lard, sugar, yeast, salt, flour, and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain 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 milk and pour it over the lard, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add flour to make a batter.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and add it to the batter. Beat well.

  4. Let it rise.

Shape and bake

  1. Add enough flour to knead. Knead thoroughly.

  2. Let it rise until light.

  3. Cut down. Shape.

  4. Let rise again.

  5. Bake 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.

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough, and the gluten it builds gives the rolls their chewy crumb.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the rolls soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Let it rise until light. The yeast needs enough time to produce gas and develop the dough's structure. Under-proofed rolls stay dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its shape in the oven.

“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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