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New York Breakfast Rolls

A quick baked roll made with flour, lard, cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New York Breakfast Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Incorporate the cream of tartar and lard with the flour.

  2. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a small amount of cold sweet milk.

  3. Mix the dissolved soda and remaining milk with the flour mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release carbon dioxide, which makes the rolls rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with the soda, driving the rising and giving a slightly tangy flavor.
Lard
Fat that coats flour particles, tenderizing the crumb and keeping it short.
Flour
Provides the structure that traps gas and sets as the rolls bake.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Once the soda meets the acid and liquid, it starts releasing gas right away. Waiting lets much of that gas escape before the heat sets the dough, so the rolls rise less.

“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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