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Baking

Milk Rolls

Milk rolls are small baked rolls made from flour, cornflour, butter, milk, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Milk Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and cornflour.

  2. Rub in the butter until well combined.

  3. Add the baking powder and a tiny pinch of salt.

  4. Gradually moisten the mixture with the milk, working it into a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough and shape it into small rolls on a floured surface.

  2. Place the rolls on a baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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).

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 as its proteins set during baking.
Cornflour
Gives the rolls a lighter, more tender crumb than flour alone.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the rolls rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the mixture into a workable dough.

The step that matters

Rubbing in the butter. Butter should be worked into the flour until no large lumps remain, so fat coats the flour particles. This limits gluten development and keeps the rolls tender rather than tough.

“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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