Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Parker House 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
Combine lukewarm sweet milk, sugar, and yeast in a bowl.
Let the mixture rise overnight.
Add butter and enough flour to the mixture to form a stiff dough.
Let the dough rise until light.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut it into squares.
Fold the squares up and let them rise again.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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 so it rises and becomes light and airy.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten structure that holds the stiff dough and the rolls' shape.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar and yeast.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during the rise and adds sweetness and browning.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture of the rolls.
The step that matters
Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas that expands the dough. Rising too short leaves dense rolls, while over-rising can weaken the gluten structure and cause collapse.
“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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