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Dessert

Stuffed Sweet Rolls

A sweet roll filled with apples, almonds, macaroons, currants, eggs, and butter, baked and served with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Stuffed Sweet 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.

Prepare the rolls

  1. Halve the rolls lengthways.

  2. Remove the crumb from the rolls.

  3. Soak the crusts in cold milk for a few minutes while preparing the filling.

Make the filling

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Cook the apples with ⅓ cup of water, ½ oz. of butter, and 1 tablespoon of sugar until soft.

  3. Mash the apples into a pulp with a wooden spoon.

  4. Add the currants, ground almonds, crushed macaroons, 1 beaten egg, and the yolk of the other egg to the apple mixture. Mix well.

  5. Add some breadcrumbs to form a fairly firm mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the crusts of the rolls with the mixture.

  2. Press the halves together.

  3. Place the rolls in a baking tin.

  4. Sprinkle the rolls with sugar and cinnamon.

  5. Dot the rolls with bits of butter.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  7. Serve with white sauce.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Cooking apples
Cook down to a soft pulp that gives the filling its moist body and sweetness.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and help it set firm during baking.
Ground sweet almonds
Add body and a nutty flavour, thickening the filling as it bakes.
Crushed macaroons
Add sweetness and a crumbly texture that stiffens the filling.
Wholemeal rolls
Form the edible shell that holds the filling while it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Form a fairly firm mixture with the breadcrumbs. Too wet a filling makes the rolls soggy and can spill out during baking. Breadcrumbs absorb excess moisture from the apples, so add them until the mixture holds its shape.

Swap the currant

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

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

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