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The Modern Flour Confectioner

A yeast-leavened flour dough with lard, shaped into rolls, proved and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,611 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The Modern Flour Confectioner

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix 3 oz of compressed yeast with 14 lbs of flour to create a stiff sponge.

  2. Once the sponge is ripe, mix in 1 oz of lard for every 1 lb of dough.

  3. Knead the dough until well combined and stiffen with flour.

  4. Let the dough prove for 2 hours if using Parisian barm, or 1 hour if using compressed yeast.

Shape and prove

  1. Weigh off 6 oz portions, shape them, and dust with a mix of ½ lb rice flour and ½ lb fine flour.

  2. Place the shaped dough in proving boards and let them rest for 1 hour.

  3. Split each piece in two.

  4. Shape each piece round and arrange in rows.

  5. Roll out each piece to the thickness of a halfpenny biscuit.

  6. Dock each piece in the center.

  7. Place in warm proving boards.

  8. Cover to keep cold air out and let them prove.

  9. When nicely proved, prod with a nail.

Bake

  1. Bake on the oven bottom.

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. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that the gluten network builds as the dough is kneaded and stiffened.
Compressed yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture of the rolls.
Rice flour
Dusts the shaped pieces, giving a light coating that keeps them from sticking during proving.

The step that matters

Proving the shaped rolls. Under-proved rolls stay dense and over-proved ones collapse, because yeast gas must expand the gluten structure to just the right degree. Covering keeps a warm, moist surface so the dough does not skin over.

“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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