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Cinnamon Rolls

A sweet roll made with flour, baking powder, butter, lard, milk, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cinnamon Rolls

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 ↓

Cinnamon 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Rub in butter and lard until well combined.

  4. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough very thin.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon mixture evenly over the dough.

  3. Roll the dough tightly and cut into slices ¾ to 1 inch thick.

  4. Place the slices on a baking pan and bake until golden.

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.

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 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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the rolls rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and adds flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the dough short and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a soft, workable dough.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough tightly. A tight, even roll keeps the spiral layers intact. Loose rolling lets the filling fall out and gives uneven rises and gaps between layers.

“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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