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Bread

Excellent Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with butter, milk, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Excellent Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Warm the butter in a saucepan over low heat until melted.

  2. Add the milk and yeast to the melted butter and stir to combine.

  3. In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt together.

  4. Pour the milk mixture into the flour and mix until a dough forms.

  5. Let the dough rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

  6. Knead the dough well on a floured surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into cakes about 3 inches thick.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and contributes to a softer crumb and browning.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and adds richness to the rolls.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well on a floured surface.. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense, while flour on the surface keeps it from sticking.

“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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