Skip to main content
Bread

Dinner or Breakfast Rolls

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Dinner or Breakfast Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Crumble the butter into the flour and mix in the salt.

  2. In a basin, combine the yeast and sugar with ½ pint of warm milk.

  3. Hollow the center of the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and stir in enough flour to make a thick batter.

  4. Cover with a cloth and let it rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

  5. Once risen, mix in the whisked egg and ½ pint of warm milk to form a smooth dough.

  6. Cover again and let it rise for 30 to 45 minutes.

Shape and prove

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and divide it into 24 equal portions.

  2. Knead each portion lightly into small round or olive-shaped rolls.

  3. Make a slight incision around each roll and cut once or twice across the top.

  4. Place the rolls on floured baking sheets, spaced an inch or two apart.

  5. Let them prove for 15 to 20 minutes.

Bake and cool

  1. Brush the tops with a mixture of egg yolk and a little milk.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Turn the rolls upside down on a dish to cool after baking.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and the yolk helps the tops brown.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and yeast to form the dough and adds softness.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time in warmth to produce enough gas for a light, airy crumb. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse.

“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.

More breakfast rolls recipes

English 5Graham 4New York 3 See all 69 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes