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Brentford Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, salt, sugar, butter, eggs, yeast, and milk, baked until golden.

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 ↓

Brentford Rolls

twelve portions

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 large bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, butter, and beaten eggs.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Knead the dough well and set it to rise in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. Once risen, divide the dough into twelve portions and shape them into rolls.

  2. Place the rolls on buttered tin plates and let them rise again until they are the proper size.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for half an hour.

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the rolls set and brown.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds softness and browning from its milk sugars.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the rolls rise again before baking. Under-proofed rolls stay dense and heavy, while over-proofed ones collapse or bake flat. Rising until they are the proper size gives an even, airy crumb.

“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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