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Bread

Light Rolls

Light rolls are made from flour, sugar, salt, egg whites, lard, yeast, and water, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Light Rolls

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Light Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the lard and flour together.

  2. Stir in the sugar, salt, and frothed egg whites.

  3. Add enough milk-warm water to make a thin batter.

  4. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise for 2 to 3 hours.

  5. Once risen, work in enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  6. Knead until smooth and slightly soft.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and let them rise again.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the dough once worked into a stiff dough.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they add lift and a light, airy crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, leavening the dough so the rolls become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and gentle browning.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise fully. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for a light roll. Rising too short leaves dense rolls, and the second rise after shaping also needs room to expand before baking.

“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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