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Dinner or Breakfast Rolls

A soft roll made from flour, butter, yeast, milk, and egg, baked until golden.

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

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 basin, combine the yeast and sugar with the warm milk.

  3. Hollow the center of the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and stir to make a thick batter.

  4. Cover with flour, then cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

  5. Once risen, mix in the whisked egg and additional warm milk to form a smooth dough.

  6. Cover again and let rise for 30 to 45 minutes.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Knead each portion into small round or olive-shaped rolls and make a slight incision on top.

  3. Place the rolls on floured baking sheets, spaced 1 to 2 inches apart, and let them prove for 15 to 20 minutes.

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

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

  6. 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
Provides the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it feeds on sugar, making the dough rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Egg
Adds richness and moisture, and helps give the crumb a tender structure.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Proving the rolls before baking. Under-proofed rolls stay dense and heavy, while over-proofed rolls can collapse or bake flat. Yeast gas must fill the shaped dough before the oven sets its structure.

“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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