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Vienna Rolls

Vienna rolls are yeast dough rolls shaped into spirals and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Vienna Rolls

Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Vienna Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Warm the milk slightly.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk.

  3. Set the sponge at 8 AM.

  4. At 1 PM add the sugar and salt to the sponge.

  5. Work in the rest of the flour to form a stiff dough.

  6. Let the dough rise until 3:30 PM.

Shape the rolls

  1. Knead the dough vigorously on a floured surface by pressing out and folding over.

  2. Roll out the dough into a large, thin sheet, no thicker than the edge of a plate.

  3. Cut the dough into strips about 6 inches wide.

  4. Cut the strips into long triangular pieces.

  5. Roll each triangle from the broad side to the point, creating spiral shapes.

  6. Place the rolls in a crescent shape on a baking pan.

Bake

  1. Brush the rolls lightly with milk.

  2. Let the rolls rise for about 40 minutes before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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 stiff dough structure that holds the gluten and shape of the rolls.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and gives the crust a light, golden finish.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and mild browning to the crust.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens the gluten for a better-textured dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until 3:30 PM. Yeast needs enough time to ferment the sponge fully; under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

“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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