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Graham Rolls

A quick yeast roll made with graham and white flour, molasses, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Graham Rolls

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Mix the Graham flour and white flour thoroughly with a spoon.

  2. Add lukewarm water, molasses, yeast, drippings or butter, and salt; mix well.

  3. Let the mixture rise for about an hour, depending on the temperature.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop the dough into buttered roll pans.

  2. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for about 10 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse bran and wholesome, nutty texture that gives the rolls their character.
White flour
Supplies gluten to build structure so the dough can trap gas and hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during the rise, making the rolls light and airy.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Drippings or butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas and develop the dough's structure. Because the rise depends on temperature, underproofed dough bakes up dense and overproofed 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.

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