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Dessert

Coffee Rolls

Coffee rolls are sweet yeast rolls flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, brushed with butter and glazed with confectioners' sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Coffee 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 dough

  1. Scald the milk until lukewarm, then add the yeast cakes and dissolve.

  2. Stir in 3½ cups of flour and beat thoroughly.

  3. Cover and let rise.

  4. Add butter, lard, sugar, unbeaten egg, cinnamon, salt, and enough flour to knead.

  5. Knead until well mixed, cover, and let rise again.

Shape the rolls

  1. Turn the mixture onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle ¼ inch thick.

  2. Brush with melted butter, fold from ends toward the center to make three layers, and cut into ¾ inch wide pieces.

  3. Cover and let rise.

  4. Take each piece, twist from the ends in opposite directions, and shape into a coil.

Bake and glaze

  1. Place in buttered pans, cover, let rise, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Cool slightly, then brush with a mixture of confectioners' sugar moistened with boiling water and flavored with vanilla.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
Yeast cakes
Ferment the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the rolls soft and tender.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before shaping and baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build structure; under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough may collapse or lose its shape.

“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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