Name: Buttermilk Rolls
Ingredients: 4 pints sifted flour; 1 pint buttermilk; 1 teacup lard; 1 teacup yeast; 1 tablespoon white sugar; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

In a large pan, place the sifted flour and create a well in the center.
Boil the buttermilk, then stir in the lard while hot.
Once cooled, add the yeast and sugar to the buttermilk mixture and set aside to rise.
Combine the risen mixture with the flour to form a soft dough, adding salt to taste.
Shape the dough into small rolls and let them rise again.
For best results, start the sponge in the morning during summer or earlier in winter.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).