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Kentucky Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, buttermilk, lard, and yeast, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kentucky Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 3 quarts of flour in a large pan.

  2. Scald 1 quart of buttermilk, then add 1 cup of lard to the buttermilk.

  3. Pour the mixture over the flour and beat it well.

  4. Add 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of yeast to the mixture.

  5. Set the mixture in a warm place overnight.

  6. In the morning, mix in 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar.

  7. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  8. Knead thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Let rise twice.

  2. Cut the dough into long rolls and place rolls in pans.

  3. Bake when light.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the gas and shapes the rolls.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, contributing tenderness and flavor to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Knead thoroughly. Kneading develops the gluten network in the flour, which traps the gas yeast produces. Without enough kneading, the dough rises poorly and the rolls turn out dense.

“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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