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Baking Powder Parker House Rolls

A soft, buttery roll made with baking powder, sweet milk, and butter.

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

Baking Powder Parker House 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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar together.

  2. Cut in butter with a spatula or mixing spoon.

  3. Add sweet milk and stir briskly.

  4. Roll dough on a floured surface to a thickness of ¼ inch.

Shape and bake

  1. Brush dough with melted butter and cut into biscuit shapes.

  2. Fold each piece of dough over in a pocket-book form and place on a greased baking sheet.

  3. You can place the rolls close together or leave space between them.

  4. Press a nut or raisin into the center of each roll.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 structure that holds the rolls' shape as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the rolls rise and become light.
Butter
Cut into the flour and brushed on top, adding tenderness and richness with browning.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and browning.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cutting in the butter and stirring in the milk. Working the butter into flour in small pieces, then mixing the milk only until combined, keeps the dough tender. Overworking develops gluten, which makes rolls tough and 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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