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Bread

Milk Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, flour, salt, yeast, baking soda, baked at 350°F.

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 ↓

Milk Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the flour with the salt.

  2. Warm the milk and mix in the baking soda.

Knead and rise

  1. Knead the dough for 45 minutes.

  2. Let it rise until very light, then knead again for 15-20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Place the dough in bread pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) without a second rise.

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

Flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its milk sugars help the crust brown.

The step that matters

Rising until very light. The first rise lets yeast build gas and gluten develop, giving the loaf its lift and fine crumb. Because the dough goes into the pans without a second rise, under-rising leaves the bread 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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