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Bread

Break — French Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with flour, milk, butter, yeast, and salt, baked in stages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Break — French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a large bowl, knead the sifted flour with the milk, warm butter, yeast, and coarse sea salt until well combined.

  2. Cover the dough and let it rise for 2 hours.

  3. After rising, form the dough into rolls and place them on greased baking sheets.

Bake and finish

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C) and bake the rolls for 1 hour.

  2. Increase the oven temperature to 400°F (200°C) and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

  3. Remove from the oven and brush the rolls with butter for a nice color.

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. Milk + buttertop 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).

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 gluten network that gives the rolls their structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, which makes the rolls light and airy.

The step that matters

Raising the oven to 400°F for the final bake. The long, gentle 300°F bake cooks the interior through without over-browning. The higher heat at the end sets and browns the crust, so the switch must be made on time.

“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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