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French Rolls

Soft yeast rolls made with egg white, butter, sugar, and milk, then 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 ↓

French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Make a sponge by mixing yeast, beaten egg white, melted butter, sugar, salt, warm milk or water, and enough flour to form a soft dough.

  2. Knead the dough well and let it rise again.

Shape the rolls

  1. Roll the dough out to about ¾ inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into 4‑inch squares.

  3. Butter the edges of each square.

  4. Roll each corner up to the center.

  5. Place the rolls on buttered baking sheets.

Bake

  1. Allow the rolls to rise until very light.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise and become light.
Egg white
Adds structure to the dough and helps it hold its shape as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer crumb and helps the edges brown.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds richness and browning through its milk sugars.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise until very light. Under-proofed rolls stay dense and heavy, while the gas from yeast builds the airy crumb. Rising until very light before baking gives the rolls their lift in the oven.

“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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