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Breakfast Rolls

A sweet roll made with sweet milk, butter or lard, yeast, flour, and egg, baked until light.

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

Breakfast 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. Dissolve the yeast cake in warm water.

  2. Mix the dissolved yeast with sweet milk and enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Let the dough rise overnight.

  4. In the morning, add the egg and knead thoroughly.

  5. Let the dough rise again until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and place them in pans.

  2. Keep the rolls warm and bake when very light at 400°F (200°C).

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the dough's gluten structure that traps gas and holds the rolls' shape.
Egg
Adds richness and structure, helping the dough hold its shape and brown in the oven.
Butter or lard
Adds fat, giving the rolls a tender texture and softer crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and some sugar and protein, contributing to a softer crumb and browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise again until light. Rolls baked before the dough is fully risen stay dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse. The yeast's gas must be trapped by the gluten network to give a light crumb.

“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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