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French Rolls

A yeast roll made with milk, butter, sugar, yeast cake, and flour, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the milk until it is near boiling, then add the sugar, salt, and butter.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add the yeast cake that has been soaked in a little warm water.

  3. Add enough flour to create a soft sponge and beat well.

  4. Once light, add more flour to knead the dough until smooth.

  5. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the dough in baking pans and let it rise again until doubled.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 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.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 gluten network that traps gas and gives the rolls their structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its proteins help the crumb brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the hot milk mixture must cool enough that it does not destroy the yeast before it can ferment and raise the dough.

“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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