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Dessert

Fresh Blackberry or Raspberry Roll

A sweet roll made with flour, shortening, milk, butter, and fresh blackberries or raspberries, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Fresh Blackberry or Raspberry Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

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

  2. Cut the shortening into the dry ingredients.

  3. Add the milk and mix quickly into a soft dough.

Fill and roll

  1. Dredge a board with flour and roll the dough into an oblong shape, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Soften the butter.

  3. Spread the softened butter over the dough.

  4. Evenly distribute the blackberries on top.

  5. Sprinkle sugar and flour over the fruit.

  6. Roll the dough tightly into a long roll.

  7. Pinch the edges to seal.

Bake

  1. Bake on a greased sheet or pan in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Milk + buttertop 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 of the dough that holds the roll together while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Shortening
Cut into the flour to make the dough tender and flaky.
Butter
Spread over the dough to add richness and help it brown.
Blackberries
Provide the fruit filling, adding moisture, tartness and flavour inside the roll.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the outside brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the seam is not sealed well, juice from the fruit can leak out during baking and the filling can escape, leaving the roll dry and messy.

“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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