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Bread

French Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with flour, sugar, salt, butter, water, and optional egg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve one-third of a cake of yeast in ½ cup of lukewarm water until soft.

  2. Stir in flour to make a thick batter and let it sit overnight.

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, mix the yeast with 2 pints of flour, sugar, salt, butter, and lukewarm water.

  2. If desired, add the beaten egg for richness.

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

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into rolls and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 structure and lets it hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the rolls brown in the oven.
Butter or cottolene
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Egg
Adds richness, color and tenderness to the dough.

The step that matters

Knead the dough and let it rise until doubled in size. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap gas. Letting it rise until doubled lets the yeast fill the dough with air; underproofing gives dense rolls, while overproofing can collapse them.

“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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