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Bread

A yeast-leavened bread made with flour, milk, salt, sugar, and lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Soak the dry yeast cake in 1 cup of warm water until soft.

  2. Add 1 cup of flour, cover, and place in a warm area to rise for several hours.

Mix and rise overnight

  1. In the evening, mix salt, sugar, fat, and hot milk in a large bowl.

  2. When lukewarm, add the yeast mixture and enough flour to knead (about 3 quarts).

  3. Mix thoroughly and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.

  4. Return the dough to the bowl, moisten, cover, and let rise in a warm place overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, knead slightly, divide into loaves or shape into biscuits, and place in pans.

  2. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

  3. Bake large loaves for 50 to 60 minutes and biscuits for 25 to 35 minutes 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. 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

Dry yeast cake
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and elasticity.
Milk
Adds richness and moisture, and softens the crumb.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a softer crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds mild sweetness and browning.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens gluten for flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Kneading until smooth and elastic. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas yeast produces. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up 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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