Skip to main content
Bread

French Rolls

A yeasted roll made with flour, butter, eggs, yeast, salt, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

French Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub butter into flour in a bowl.

  3. Whisk eggs and add to flour mixture with salt and yeast.

  4. Add enough milk to form dough and knead well.

  5. Place dough in a pan and let it rise until light.

Shape and rise

  1. Knead dough lightly again and shape into rolls about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Place rolls on slightly buttered baking sheets and cover with a clean towel.

  3. Set rolls in a warm place to rise until very light.

Bake

  1. Bake in preheated oven until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 dough's structure once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Add richness, structure and colour to the dough.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the dough can be kneaded.

The step that matters

Letting the rolls rise until very light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Rolls that rise too little will bake up dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

“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.

More french rolls recipes

Asparagus Stuffed 4 See all 185 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes