Why it works: Milk and flour 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 Without Sugar or Lard
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 325°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Dissolve the yeast in warm water and milk at 75°F to 80°F.
Add salt to the water and mix in half of the flour to form a medium firm dough.
Work the dough until smooth and dry, then add the remaining flour to achieve the right consistency.
Cover the dough and let it rise for 2 hours.
Shape and bake
Scale and mold the dough into boxes, then shape into loaves.
Set the loaves in cloths to prove.
Bake in a moderate oven at 325°F to 350°F.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Yeast
- Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
- Milk
- Adds fat and sugars that soften the crumb and promote gentle browning.
The step that matters
Working the dough to the right consistency. Flour is added in stages so the dough can be judged by feel. Too much flour makes the bread dry and dense, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Kneading develops gluten, which traps gas from the yeast.
“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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