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Bread

Vienna Bread

A yeast bread made with patent flour, milk, warm water, compressed yeast, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vienna Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 100°F (38°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix warm water with milk to achieve a temperature of about 100°F (38°C).

  2. Dissolve the compressed yeast in the warm milk and water mixture.

  3. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt.

  4. Gradually add the yeast mixture to the flour, mixing until a dough forms.

  5. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

  2. Shape the dough into rolls or loaves and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Allow the shaped dough to rise again until puffy, about 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Patent flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Milk
Adds tenderness, richness and some browning from its milk sugars and proteins.
Compressed yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Kneading until smooth and elastic. Kneading aligns and stretches gluten strands so the dough can trap gas; under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes 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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