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Potato Rolls

A yeast roll made with mashed potatoes, lard, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Potato Rolls

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick 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 in lukewarm water.

  2. In a bowl, mix lard, mashed potatoes, sugar, and salt.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and milk to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the dissolved yeast.

  5. Gradually add about 4 cups of flour to form a soft dough.

  6. Cover and let rise for 2 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls or a loaf and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Cover and let rise again.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake until golden brown.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and starch, keeping the rolls soft and tender.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the rolls hold together and brown.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, leavening the dough so it becomes light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and golden browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour to form a soft dough. Adding too much flour at once or too quickly makes the dough stiff and dense. A soft, slightly sticky dough gives a moister, lighter roll once the gluten has developed and the yeast has risen.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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