Skip to main content
Main

Dinner Rolls

A yeast-based roll made with milk, butter, salt, sugar, and flour, shaped into biscuits and baked.

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

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 ↓

Dinner 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. Add butter, sugar, and salt to the scalded milk.

  2. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast cake.

  3. Add 1½ cups of flour and beat thoroughly.

  4. Cover the dough and let rise until light.

  5. Add enough flour to knead, about 1¼ cups will be required.

  6. Let rise again.

Shape and rise

  1. Toss the dough on a floured board and shape into small biscuits.

  2. Cover the biscuits with a cloth.

  3. Let rise until well puffed.

  4. Make a deep crease through the center of each biscuit with the handle of a wooden spoon.

  5. Press the edges together and place closely in a buttered pan.

  6. Cover the pan and let rise.

Bake

  1. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes 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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast cake
Produces carbon dioxide gas, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture and softness to the crumb and helps the dough brown.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, feeds the yeast, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Cool the milk to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is a living culture. If the scalded milk is still hot when the yeast goes in, the heat can kill it, and the dough will fail to rise properly.

“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.

More dinner rolls recipes

Fried 8 See all 20 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes