Skip to main content
Bread

Parker House Rolls

Soft rolls made with milk, butter, lard, sugar, yeast, and flour.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine hot milk, salt, butter, lard, and sugar.

  2. Cool the mixture.

  3. Add the compressed yeast to the cooled mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, place the flour and stir in the milk mixture to create a thick batter.

  5. Cover the bowl and let the batter rise.

  6. Knead in the remaining flour until well combined.

  7. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to a quarter inch thick and cut into shapes.

  2. Indent each roll and brush with butter.

  3. Fold one half over the other and place in a pan.

  4. Cover and let rise for one hour.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 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. 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
Provides the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, leading to a softer crumb and browner crust.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by excessive heat, so adding it to hot milk can stop the dough from rising. Letting the mixture cool first keeps the yeast alive so it can ferment and lift the rolls.

“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