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Dessert

Cream Rolls

A sweet baked roll made with sugar, egg, sweet milk, flour, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and currants or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, egg, and 3 tablespoons of old sweet milk with a small piece of baking soda.

  2. Add enough sweet milk to fill the cup to 1½ cups.

  3. In another bowl, combine sifted flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Gradually add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.

  5. Fold in the currants or raisins.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the hot oven until golden brown.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as the rolls set.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the rolls rise and turn light.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the surface brown during baking.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a soft batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.. Adding liquid slowly and mixing just until smooth keeps lumps out while avoiding overmixing, which develops gluten and can make the rolls tough.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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