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Dessert

Butter Rolls

Butter rolls are dough made with flour, baking powder, butter or dripping, and sweet milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Butter 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. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.

  2. Add the butter and sweet milk, then knead the dough well.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thin and cut into shapes.

  2. Fold each piece in half diagonally, wet the edges and top with milk.

  3. 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 main structure as gluten forms when the dough is mixed and kneaded.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the rolls rise and turn light in the oven.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour and golden surface.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and browning from its milk sugars.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well. Kneading develops gluten so the dough holds its shape and rises evenly. Overworking it makes the rolls tough, while underkneading leaves them crumbly and weak.

“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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