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Parker House Rolls

A soft yeast roll with butter, sugar, and a hint of baking soda, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Make a thick batter with the milk, sugar, butter, yeast, and salt.

  2. Let the batter rise overnight.

  3. In the morning, add the dissolved baking soda.

  4. Knead the dough for 15 to 20 minutes.

  5. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut with a biscuit cutter.

  2. Brush the rolls with melted butter.

  3. Fold the rolls.

  4. Let the rolls rise until very light.

  5. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  6. Brush with melted butter after removing from the 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the dough's structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter and dough rise, giving the rolls their light texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and contributes richness and browning on the crust.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning to the crust.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk's acidity to release gas, adding extra lift to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise until very light. Under-proofed rolls stay dense and heavy, while proper rising builds the gas and gluten structure that gives a light, open crumb after baking.

“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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