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Bread

Rye Rolls

Rye rolls are small baked bread rolls made with sour milk, flour, sugar, rye meal, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rye Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour milk, flour, sugar, rye meal, baking soda, and salt until well combined.

  2. Shape the dough into rolls and place them on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake for 15-20 minutes or 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. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the rolls rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the rolls together.
Rye meal
Adds its distinctive flavour and a denser, heartier texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the rolls brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing the dough and baking soon after. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acid in the sour milk. Shaping and placing the rolls in the oven promptly keeps the gas produced in the dough so the rolls rise well.

“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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