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Cinnamon Rolls

A sweet roll made with flour, butter, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, and currants, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cinnamon Rolls

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add butter and rub together until mixed.

  3. Beat the egg until light.

  4. Add milk and pour over the dry ingredients.

  5. Stir with a knife to form a smooth dough.

  6. Knead lightly.

Fill and shape

  1. Roll out the dough to about ⅓ inch thick.

  2. Cream the butter. Spread it over the dough.

  3. Mix cinnamon with granulated sugar. Sprinkle over the dough.

  4. Sprinkle dried currants on top.

  5. Roll the dough tightly from you into a compact roll.

  6. Cut into slices about ½ inch thick and place close together in a baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping it rise in the oven.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and carries flavour.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour into a dough.
Dried currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit within the roll.

The step that matters

Roll the dough tightly into a compact roll. A tight, even roll keeps the spiral layers of butter, cinnamon and sugar intact, so the slices bake with a clear swirl rather than loose, uneven layers.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, milk, cinnamon. 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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