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Potato Rolls

A yeast-based roll made from mashed potatoes, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

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

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 ↓

Potato Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cut potatoes into pieces, then boil and mash them finely.

  2. While hot, add butter, sugar, and milk to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Stir in beaten eggs and enough cake flour to form a soft dough.

  4. Add the yeast cake and let the dough rise.

  5. If time allows, punch down the dough and let it rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough, cut with a biscuit cutter, and fold over.

  2. Let the rolls rise again before 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.

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

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Potatoes
Mashed potato adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the dough.
Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape.
Cake flour
Forms the dough's structure once mixed with the potato and liquids.
Yeast cake
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives the rolls richness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build volume; rolls shaped or baked before they have risen enough come out dense and heavy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar, flour):

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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