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Dinner or Breakfast Rolls

Yeast rolls made with flour, butter, yeast, sugar, milk, egg, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Dinner or Breakfast Rolls

24 rolls
Oven, in the book's wordsA rather brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Crumble the butter into the flour and mix in the salt.

  2. In a bowl, combine the yeast and sugar with ½ cup warm milk. Make a well in the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and stir in enough flour to form a thick batter.

  3. Cover with flour, then cover the bowl with a cloth and let it rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

  4. Once risen, mix in the whisked egg (or yolks) and ½ cup warm milk to form a smooth dough.

  5. Cover again and let it rise for 30 to 45 minutes.

Shape and prove

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and divide it into 24 equal portions.

  2. Knead each portion lightly into small round or olive-shaped rolls. Make a slight incision around each roll and cut once or twice across the top.

  3. Place the rolls on floured baking sheets, spaced an inch or two apart.

  4. Let them prove for 15 to 20 minutes.

Bake and cool

  1. Wash the tops with a mixture of egg yolk and milk.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Turn the rolls upside down on a dish to cool after baking.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and enriches the flavor.
Egg
Adds protein and fat that enrich the dough and help give a soft crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for a light, airy crumb. Rolls shaped from under-risen dough stay dense and may spread unevenly in the oven.

“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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