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Vienna Rolls

Vienna rolls are soft dough pastries baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Vienna Rolls

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 ↓

Vienna 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 dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, butter or lard, baking powder, and salt. Add enough sweet milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and cut into rounds.

Shape and bake

  1. Fold each round in half, wetting the edge to seal. Brush the tops with sweet milk.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the rolls rise and become light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and browning on the brushed tops.

The step that matters

Sealing the folded rounds. If the edge is not wetted before folding, the rounds may not seal and can open or split as the baking powder releases gas 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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