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Parker House Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, lard, milk, sugar, and yeast, baked at 400°F for 20 minutes.

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 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 ↓

Parker House 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and lard, rubbing the lard into the flour.

  2. Make a well in the center and add the dissolved yeast, sugar, and cold boiled milk.

  3. Sprinkle in a little salt and mix until combined.

  4. Cover and let the dough sit overnight.

  5. Knead the dough well in the morning and let it rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. In the afternoon, knead the dough once more, then cut it into rolls.

  2. Let the rolls rise again before baking.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that the gluten network builds as the dough is kneaded and risen.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Lard
Coats flour particles and shortens gluten, giving the rolls a tender, soft texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its proteins and sugars help the crumb brown lightly.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well in the morning and let it rise again. Kneading develops the gluten that traps the gas yeast produces; if the dough is under-kneaded or under-risen, the rolls will be dense rather than light.

“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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