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Bread

Vienna Bread

A yeast bread made with patent flour, milk, 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.

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. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour and mix until a dough forms.

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

  6. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Allow the rolls to rise again before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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 traps gas and gives the bread its structure.
Milk
Adds tenderness, softness and some browning from its milk sugars and proteins.
Warm water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast.
Compressed yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough carbon dioxide to expand the gluten network. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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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