Skip to main content
Bread

Salad or Dinner Rolls

A yeast bread roll made with flour, butter, sugar, salt, milk, egg, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Salad or Dinner Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Combine scalded milk, butter, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture cool until lukewarm.

  3. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water.

  4. Add the dissolved yeast to the milk mixture.

  5. Beat in the egg.

  6. Gradually add flour until a dough forms.

  7. Knead the dough until smooth.

  8. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into small biscuits.

  2. Place the biscuits in a buttered pan, one inch apart.

  3. Cover the biscuits.

  4. Let them rise until light and puffed.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 12 to 15 minutes.

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 cake
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and colour.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the baked rolls.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its proteins help create a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by hot liquid. If the scalded milk is still hot when the dissolved yeast goes in, the yeast may die and the rolls will not rise properly.

“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 dinner rolls recipes

Fried 8 See all 20 →

You might also like

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