Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
New England Bread with Straight Dough
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine water, milk, yeast, lard, sugar, coarse sea salt, and cornmeal mush to make a medium dough.
Set the dough at 75°F (24°C).
Rise and shape
Let it rise for 4 hours.
Work the dough over.
Let it rise until it is about half its size.
Mold the dough into pans.
Allow it to rise for another 45 minutes.
Bake
Bake in a preheated oven at 325°F (165°C) until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and become light.
- Cornmeal mush
- Adds bulk and body to the dough, giving the loaf a dense, hearty crumb.
- Milk
- Adds richness and softness, and helps the crust brown during baking.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the loaf moist.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and promotes browning of the crust.
The step that matters
Let it rise until it is about half its size. Rising is driven by yeast activity, which depends on temperature and time. Under-proofing leaves the loaf dense, while over-proofing lets the gluten weaken and the loaf collapse in the oven.
“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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