Name: Swiss Rolls
Ingredients: 1 ounce Vienna yeast; 1 pinch salt; ½ pint tepid milk; 1 ounce butter; 1 pound flour; 1½ cups lukewarm milk

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 ↓

Swiss Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

Mix the yeast, salt, tepid milk, butter, and flour together until well combined.
Cover the mixture and let it sit for 3 hours.
Add the lukewarm milk to form a dough and let it rise for another ½ hour.

Shape and bake

Roll the dough into fancy shapes and let them rise in the pan for 15 minutes.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Serve

Serve with coffee or chocolate for breakfast.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main structure of the dough as its proteins develop into gluten.
Vienna yeast: Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Milk: Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.

“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.