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Bread

A French Receipt for French Bread

A simple French bread made with flour, salt, butter, milk, and yeast, kneaded into a light dough, baked until well browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

A French Receipt for French Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quite quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour through a fine sieve and mix with the salt.

  2. Dissolve the butter in 1 pint of milk and let it cool.

  3. Stir the cooled butter mixture into another pint or pint and a half of milk blended with the yeast.

  4. Combine the milk mixture with the flour to form a light dough.

  5. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size without sinking.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough and divide it into 1 or 2-pound loaves, shaping them into rolls.

  2. Place the loaves on baking sheets, spaced apart, and let them rise again in a warm place.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size, until well browned.

  4. Cool completely before slicing.

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. Butter + milktop 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).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its crumb.
Fresh german yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.
Milk
Provides moisture for hydrating the flour and adds softness and browning from milk sugars.
Fine salt
Controls yeast activity and strengthens gluten, adding flavor.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled without sinking. Under-proofed dough yields dense bread, while over-proofed dough loses gas and collapses, so the cook must judge the rise by size and by whether the dough holds its shape.

“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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