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Delicious Rolls
1 pint milk Butter size of an egg Beaten white of 1 egg ½ cup white sugar ½ cup yeast Five Roses flour to mould.
Boil the milk and while hot add the butter. When lukewarm, add the beaten white of egg, the sugar, yeast, and Five Roses flour enough to mould. Let rise overnight. Work down and let rise again, then roll out to the thickness of your finger.
Cut the rolls the size you wish. Butter half very slightly and turn the other half over the buttered part. This keeps the rolls from sticking together and is the secret of retaining their shape. Place properly in baking tins and set in a warm place until very light. Then bake quickly.
If directions are closely followed, you will find these rolls will almost melt in the mouth.
Currants may be added, if desired.
A straightforward overnight milk-and-yeast roll, folded in the Parker House manner. The vague quantities are typical of a book built from readers' contributions; the measurements below will get you there.
- Half a cup of yeastThis means a liquid yeast: a homemade barm, or wet yeast bought from a baker or brewer, not granules. A rough modern substitute is one packet (2¼ tsp) of active dry or instant yeast; since the half-cup of liquid leaven is lost with it, expect to need a little less flour than the old proportions imply.
- A pint of milkTwo cups in US measure. This book is Canadian, so an imperial pint of 20 fl oz is also possible; start with 2 cups and add flour to suit, since the dough is judged by feel anyway.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 to 3 tablespoons, or 1½ to 2 ounces; old tables differ, and eggs of the period ran smaller than modern ones.
- Flour to mouldExpect roughly 5 to 6 cups. The recipe wants flour 'enough to mould', so a soft dough that just clears the bowl but is still firm enough to roll out and cut.
- Boiling the milkScalding was done to kill wild organisms in unpasteurised milk and to deactivate whey proteins that slacken gluten. With modern pasteurised milk it is optional, though warming it still helps the butter melt in. Cool to lukewarm — under about 110F — before the yeast goes near it.
- Let rise overnightWith a single packet of modern yeast, a cool room (60-65F) or a stint in the refrigerator will keep this from over-proving and going sour by morning. A warm kitchen will exhaust the dough in three or four hours.
- The foldThis is the hinge of the recipe. Butter one half of each cut round very lightly and fold the dry half over it; the recipe credits this with keeping the rolls from sticking and with holding their shape.
- Bake quicklyThe book gives no temperature. A hot oven, around 400 to 425F, for about 12 to 15 minutes suits rolls of this size; they should colour fast, which keeps the crumb moist.
- YieldAbout two dozen rolls, depending on how large you cut them.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Winnipeg and Montreal, one of the great Canadian flour millers, and it was assembled largely from recipes sent in by women who baked with the brand — which is why the flour is named in the ingredient lists and why the wording shifts from page to page. The folded shape described here is the Parker House roll, generally traced to the Boston hotel of that name in the later nineteenth century, though the contributor does not name it. The half-cup of liquid yeast is the older marker: many households still kept a yeast jar going, or bought it wet from a baker, and the long overnight rise suits that slower, less predictable leaven far better than it suits a modern packet.