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Light Rolls

Light rolls are a potato-based bread roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Light Rolls

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Light 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 potato batter

  1. Peel, slice, and boil the potatoes in 1 quart of water until soft, then mash to a cream.

  2. Scald 3 teacups of flour with the potato water, then add the mashed potatoes and more boiling water to create a batter slightly thinner than mush.

  3. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast.

Make and shape the dough

  1. For the bread, combine 1 quart of flour with 1 tablespoon of lard, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of yeast and enough tepid water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Knead the dough and let it rise.

  4. The next morning, roll out the dough on a floured surface, not too thin, and cut with a baking powder can.

  5. Rub the tops and pans with softened lard, then let them rise slowly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Add moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the dough.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that traps gas and sets in the oven.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and browns the tops.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Scald the flour with the potato water. Scalding gelatinizes the starch so the batter holds moisture and stays soft, and it must cool to lukewarm before yeast is added, since hot liquid kills yeast.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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