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 ↓
Cherry Roley-poley
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the flour, lard, butter, and salt.
Gradually add the milk to form a soft dough.
Fill and roll
Roll out the dough into a rectangle, about ¼ inch thick.
Spread the stoned cherries over the dough and sprinkle with sugar.
Roll the dough tightly around the cherries, leaving a narrow margin on the sides.
Place the roll in a well-floured cloth bag and seal the open end with a 'felled' seam.
Boil and serve
Boil a pot of water and plunge the bag into it, maintaining a steady boil for 1.5 hours.
Remove the bag from the water, let it cool slightly, then unwrap and serve on a hot dish with hard sauce.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 dough its structure while it boils.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderises the dough by coating flour particles and limiting gluten development.
- Butter
- Adds fat for flavour and a rich, tender texture in the dough.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour to form a soft, workable dough.
- Stoned cherries
- Provide the fruit filling, releasing juice that moistens the roll as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cherry filling and draws out juice from the fruit.
The step that matters
Maintaining a steady boil in the cloth bag. If the water stops boiling, the roll cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and doughy. The cloth bag must be well floured so the dough does not stick, and the water should stay at a steady boil for the full cooking time.
“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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