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Kentucky Buttermilk Rolls

A yeasted roll made with buttermilk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kentucky Buttermilk 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine buttermilk and baking soda. Let it sit for 5 minutes.

  2. In another bowl, mix flour, sugar, and salt.

  3. Melt the butter and add it to the buttermilk mixture.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the buttermilk mixture, stirring until a dough forms.

  5. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 5 minutes.

Rise and shape

  1. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

  2. Punch down the dough and shape it into rolls.

  3. Place the rolls on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture and tang to the dough.
All-purpose flour
Its proteins form gluten, giving the dough structure so the rolls hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps the crust brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas that helps the rolls rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The rise lets the gluten network trap gas and grow the dough. Rolls shaped before they have doubled may bake up dense and heavy.

“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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