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Bread

Common Rolls

Common rolls are yeast breads made with butter, milk, water, flour, salt, yeast, baking soda, and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Common Rolls

7 rolls
Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Warm the butter in the milk.

  2. Add the yeast and salt to the mixture.

  3. In a large bowl, mix the flour with the other ingredients.

  4. Let the dough rise for 1 hour or overnight in a cool place.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough well and shape it into 7 rolls.

  2. Add the baking soda just before baking.

  3. Bake the rolls in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Let the rolls cool in the oven without the lid for about 10 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture, sugars and proteins that help browning and a soft texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the dough to release gas and aid browning.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda just before baking. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets acid and moisture, so adding it late keeps that lift for the oven rather than losing it during shaping and resting.

“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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