Name: Delicious Tea Rolls
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons sugar; 2 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 cups flour; 3 teaspoons baking powder

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Delicious Tea Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Add the salt, sweet milk, flour, and baking powder, and mix until smooth.
Grease a large baking pan with butter.

Bake

Drop a tablespoonful of the batter in each place on the pan.
Bake 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps with light browning on the outside.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

“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.