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Plain Rolls

A yeast dough roll made with flour, butter, milk, yeast, sugar, and salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Plain 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 deep bowl, sift 2 quarts of flour and rub in 1 large spoonful of butter.

  2. Make a hole in the center and stir in ½ teacup of milk with dissolved yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and ½ teaspoon of salt.

  3. Add 1 pint of milk and mix well.

  4. Let the dough rise overnight or all day.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick on a floured surface.

  2. Cut with a large cutter, brush with melted butter, and fold like turnovers.

  3. Let them rise for 1 hour in the pan.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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).

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
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. Yeast needs enough time and warmth to produce gas; a short or cold rise leaves dense rolls, while the gluten network traps the gas to give lift.

“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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