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Polenta-bread or Rolls

A yeast-leavened bread made with polenta and flour, baked until golden.

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 ↓

Polenta-bread or Rolls

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 the dough

  1. In a bowl, blend 1 cup of polenta with 2 cups of all-purpose flour and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Dissolve 2 teaspoons of solid yeast or ½ ounce of German yeast in 1 cup of warm milk.

  3. Gradually mix the yeast mixture into the flour blend to form a dough.

  4. Knead the dough until firm but not hard, then cover with a cloth and let it rise until light.

  5. Knead the dough again, then let it rise once more.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into large rolls or small oval loaves and place them on a floured baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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

Polenta
Gives the bread its coarse, slightly grainy texture and yellow colour.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast, and adds softness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Kneading and the rises. Kneading builds gluten so the dough can trap gas. Letting it rise until light, then rising again, gives the yeast time to inflate the dough. Under-proofed dough 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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