Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Parker House Rolls
Ingredients
Directions
Scald the milk in a pot until it boils, then remove from heat.
Add the lard to the milk and let it cool.
Once cool, stir in the sugar, salt, and yeast until combined.
Let the mixture rise until well risen, about noon.
Cut down the risen dough with a knife and let it rise again until light.
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and spread with butter.
Cut the dough with a biscuit cutter and fold each piece over.
Place the rolls in tins close together.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 77,875 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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