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Graham Rolls

A quick baked roll made with sour milk, molasses, and graham flour.

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

Graham Rolls

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, baking soda, molasses, and salt.

  2. Gradually add graham flour until you achieve a thin batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into hot greased pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Let cool 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.

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. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep flavor with some browning.
Graham flour
Forms the body of the batter and gives the rolls a coarse, hearty texture.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into hot greased pans. A hot pan starts setting the batter's edges and base right away, which helps the rolls rise and form a crust rather than spreading and turning dense.

“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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