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Dessert

Snow Rolls

Snow Rolls are sweet yeast rolls made with milk, sugar, butter, flour, yeast, and a little salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snow 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. In a bowl, combine the milk, sugar, butter or lard, and a little salt.

  2. Add the yeast and mix well.

  3. Gradually incorporate flour until a soft dough forms.

  4. Knead the dough lightly and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and lets it hold the rise.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn light and airy.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives the rolls a softer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides liquid to hydrate the flour and adds richness and softness to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and build structure; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its rise in the oven.

“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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