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White Mountain Rolls

A yeast roll made with flour, butter, milk, egg white, and a portion of Royal Yeast Cake, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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White Mountain Rolls

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

White Mountain Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Boil milk and melt butter in it.

  3. When cool, add the well-beaten egg white.

  4. Dissolve ¾ of the Royal Yeast Cake in cold water.

  5. Add the dissolved yeast cake to the milk and egg mixture.

  6. Stir in the flour.

  7. Knead well.

  8. Let rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, shape into rolls and let rise for 30 minutes in a warm place before baking.

  2. Bake for 20 to 30 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the rolls their structure and chew.
Royal yeast cake
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Milk
Provides moisture and milk sugars that add softness and gentle browning.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps bind the dough and supports its structure.

The step that matters

Dissolve the yeast cake and let the dough rise fully. Yeast needs to be fully dissolved and given time to ferment so it produces enough gas. Adding it to hot liquid or rushing the rise can kill the yeast or leave the rolls dense.

“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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