Name: Breakfast or Dinner Rolls
Ingredients: 8 ounces (1 large breakfast cup) of flour; 1 teaspoon of good butter; 2 teaspoons of Yeatman's baking powder; ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt; 9 tablespoons of milk (for imported flour) or 8 tablespoons (for Indian flour)

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 ↓

Breakfast or Dinner Rolls

8 rolls

Ingredients

8 ounces (1 large breakfast cup) of flour
1 teaspoon of good butter
2 teaspoons of Yeatman's baking powder
¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt
9 tablespoons of milk (for imported flour) or 8 tablespoons (for Indian flour)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

In an enamelled pan, mix the baking powder with the flour and sprinkle the salt over it.
Rub the butter into the flour using a wooden spoon.
Gradually add the milk, mixing lightly to form a dough.

Shape and bake

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape them with spoons.
Place the shaped rolls in 8 well-buttered patty pans.
Bake in the preheated oven until the rolls are slightly browned and risen.

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).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Yeatman's baking powder: Releases gas in the dough so the rolls rise in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour particles and shortening the dough.
Milk: Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds softness and browning.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Adding liquid slowly and mixing lightly keeps the dough from becoming overworked and tough, and the amount of milk changes depending on the flour used.

“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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Breakfast or Dinner Rolls