Skip to main content

Cinnamon Rolls

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓
Cinnamon Rolls

Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Prepare a bread sponge recipe.

  2. Add butter, beaten egg, and sugar to the sponge.

  3. Roll the dough into a rectangular sheet ½ inch thick.

  4. Spread the sheet with butter.

  5. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and raisins.

  6. Roll the dough like a jelly cake and cut into ½ inch thick pieces.

  7. Place the pieces in a pan and let them rise until doubled in bulk.

  8. Bake in a moderate 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More cinnamon rolls recipes

You might also like