Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Parker House Rolls
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Mix lard, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
Scald the milk and pour it over the mixture.
Add the yeast and stir to make a stiff batter.
In the morning, if the batter is light, add flour and let it rise again.
Shape and rise
If serving for tea, around 3 o'clock, roll out the dough and spread with butter.
Cut the dough with a tumbler and fold it over.
Place the rolls in pans one inch apart and let them rise until tea time.
Bake
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it stretch and rise.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the rolls their light texture.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps it brown.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
The step that matters
Shape and rise. The rolls must rise until light before baking. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or lose its shape in the oven.
“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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