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French Rolls

French rolls are sweet yeast breads made with milk, butter, lard, yeast, salt, flour, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix sweet milk, butter, lard, yeast, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  3. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and rise

  1. In the morning, add the well-beaten eggs and knead thoroughly.

  2. Let the dough rise again.

  3. Shape the dough into balls the size of an egg.

  4. Roll each ball between your hands to form long rolls about 3 inches long.

  5. Place the rolls close together in well-buttered pans.

  6. Cover and let them rise again.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the stiff dough structure that holds the gas produced by the yeast.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and structure to the dough, helping it hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the soft dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the rolls soft.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and sugars that hydrate the flour and feed the yeast.

The step that matters

Second rise before baking. The rolls must rise fully in the pans before baking. Yeast gas expands the dough, and underproofed rolls stay dense while overproofed ones may collapse 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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