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Dessert

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are sweet rolls made from light dough, butter, sugar, and cinnamon, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cinnamon Rolls

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Prepare light dough as you would for bread.

  2. Mix in shortening, egg, and sugar.

Shape the rolls

  1. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thickness.

  2. Spread with butter, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Roll up the dough and cut it like a jelly cake.

  4. Place the rolls in pans like biscuits and let them rise.

Top and bake

  1. Once risen, top each roll with a lump of butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

  2. Bake 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Light dough
Provides the soft, airy bread structure that holds the filling and rises in the pan.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the crumb soft.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough, helping it hold its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the rolls brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the filling and topping, keeping the rolls moist.
Cinnamon
Provides the warm, aromatic spice flavor of the filling and topping.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise before baking. Proofing lets yeast gas expand the dough so the rolls become light and soft. Baking before they have risen gives dense rolls.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, butter. 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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