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Breakfast Rolls

A yeast dough roll made with mashed potatoes, sugar, flour, and lard or butter.

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

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 ↓

Breakfast Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Bake the potatoes until soft.

  2. Mash them until smooth.

  3. Mix the mashed potatoes with sugar, flour, and lukewarm water.

  4. Beat for 5 minutes until foamy.

  5. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup lukewarm water.

  6. Add to the mixture when it foams.

  7. Cover the bowl with a thick towel.

  8. Let it rise in a warm place.

Make the dough

  1. Combine the sponge with sifted flour, salt, sugar, and lard or butter.

  2. Add enough lukewarm water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Knead the dough for 30 minutes. Add flour to prevent sticking.

  4. Place the dough in a buttered bowl. Cover.

  5. Let it rise until doubled in size.

  6. Knead the dough again for 5 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into rolls and loaves.

  2. Place in buttered pans.

  3. Brush with milk or butter. Cover.

  4. Let rise until doubled.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. 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

Potatoes
Add starch and moisture that keep the rolls soft and tender.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during the sponge and adds mild sweetness and browning.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time in a warm place to produce gas. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, milk. 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.

More breakfast rolls recipes

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