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Vienna Rolls or Bread

A yeast bread roll made with Vienna flour, milk, butter, and yeast, shaped into twists or plaits and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Vienna Rolls or Bread

Ingredients

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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the yeast and castor sugar with a wooden spoon until liquid.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the milk, and heat until just tepid.

  4. Pour the milk mixture onto the yeast and add the beaten egg.

  5. Strain the mixture into the flour and mix to form a dough, adding more tepid milk if necessary.

Shape and rise

  1. Cover and let the dough rise in a warm place for two hours.

  2. Shape the dough into twists, plaits, or horse-shoes.

  3. Place on a lightly buttered baking sheet, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Brush the rolls with a mixture of heated milk and butter for a glossy finish.

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

Vienna or pastry flour
Provides the structure that the gluten network builds to hold the risen dough.
German yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Egg
Adds protein for structure and richness to the soft crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Castor sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown during baking.
Milk
Supplies moisture and warmth to hydrate the flour and activate the yeast.

The step that matters

Warming the milk to just tepid. Liquid that is too hot kills yeast and stops the dough rising, while cold milk slows fermentation. Tepid milk keeps the yeast active so the dough rises well.

“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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