Skip to main content
Bread

French Rolls

A yeast-based roll made from boiled potatoes, flour, lard, and yeast, baked until golden.

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

Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French 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.

Prepare the sponge

  1. Peel the potatoes and boil them in the water.

  2. Press and drain the potatoes through a colander.

  3. Add flour to the boiled potatoes to make a thick batter.

  4. Beat the batter well.

  5. Add the yeast to the batter to make a sponge.

  6. Let the sponge rise in a warm place until light.

Make the dough

  1. Transfer the sponge to a bread pan.

  2. Add salt, lard, and enough flour to the pan to make a soft dough.

  3. Mix the dough and let rise in a warm place.

  4. Repeat kneading and rising process 5 or 6 times.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into small pieces.

  2. Shape each piece into a roll about 1 inch thick and 5 inches long.

  3. Roll each roll in melted butter or sweet lard.

  4. Place the rolls in well-greased baking pans.

  5. Press the rolls closely together so they are about half an inch wide.

  6. Let the rolls rise for a short time.

  7. Bake the rolls for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  8. If the tops brown too quickly, cover with paper.

  9. For larger rolls, cut deeply across each one before baking to create a cleft roll.

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. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 help the dough stay soft and hold gas during rising.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Provides gluten, the protein network that gives the dough structure to trap gas and set when baked.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives the rolls a softer texture.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the sponge and dough rise until light. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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 french rolls recipes

Asparagus Stuffed 4 See all 185 →

You might also like

Potato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesCornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipes