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Dessert

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are sweet yeast dough rolls flavored with cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cinnamon Rolls

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Cinnamon 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

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 cups of white bread dough with ½ cup sugar, ⅓ cup chopped raisins or currants, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon butter, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon, then beat the mixture thoroughly.

  2. Drop spoonfuls into greased muffin tins, filling them half full.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the dough rise for one hour or until light.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

White bread dough
Provides the yeasted structure that traps gas and rises to a light, soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the rolls set and hold together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.
Raisins or currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. The dough must rise until light, because yeast gas expansion creates the airy texture. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, butter, cinnamon. 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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