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Rolls and Light Bread

A light bread roll made with flour, potato, yeast, lard, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and coffee work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 167 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Rolls and Light Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil the potato until tender.

  2. Dissolve half of the gem yeast-cake in lukewarm water.

  3. Sift 1 pint of flour into a bowl.

  4. Mash the hot potato smoothly.

  5. Mix the mashed potato with the flour.

  6. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  7. Pour in the dissolved yeast.

  8. Beat the batter well.

  9. Cover the bowl.

  10. Place the bowl in a warm spot.

Knead and shape

  1. Sift the remaining 2 pints of flour onto a surface, reserving a little for kneading.

  2. Mix in 1 tablespoon of lard, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Combine the batter with the flour.

  4. Knead the dough well.

  5. Place the dough in a covered jar or bowl.

  6. Knead the dough again.

  7. Shape the dough into rolls.

  8. Let the rolls rise before baking.

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 + coffeetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,141 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and rolls together as they rise.
Potato
Adds moisture and softness, helping the rolls stay tender.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the rolls their airy texture.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise in a warm spot. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce gas; a cold or rushed rise leaves the rolls dense instead of light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, coffee, sugar. 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.

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