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Vienna Rolls

Vienna rolls are a soft, baked roll made with milk, baking powder, lard, and butter.

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

Vienna 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.

Make the dough

  1. Mix 1 quart of milk, ½ teaspoon salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon lard in a large bowl.

  2. Add 1 pint of milk and stir until a soft dough forms that doesn't stick to your hands.

  3. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to ½ inch thick.

  4. Cut the dough with a large cake cutter.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread a thin layer of butter on each piece.

  2. Fold one half over the other.

  3. Place the rolls in a greased pan without touching them.

  4. Brush the tops lightly with milk.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the soft dough that gives the rolls their body.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the rolls rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Butter
Spread between the layers, it adds richness and helps the rolls separate and brown.

The step that matters

Place the rolls without touching them. Rolls that touch in the pan rise into each other and bake with soft, pale sides. Spacing them lets hot air reach every surface so they rise evenly and brown.

“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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