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Bread

Federal Bread

A yeast bread made with eggs, water, flour, salt, butter, and compressed yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Federal Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs with the water in which the yeast and salt have been dissolved.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour.

  3. Add the creamed butter and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pan and let it rise.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Slice the bread into half-inch slices.

  3. Butter the slices generously and replace them to maintain the loaf's shape.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Orange + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,821 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the bread hold together and set as it bakes.
Compressed yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and giving the bread an open, airy crumb.
Orange blossom flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its body and holds its shape.
Creamed butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and contributes tenderness and flavor.

The step that matters

Let it rise. Yeast needs time to ferment and trap gas in the dough; if the rise is cut short, the loaf stays dense and heavy after baking.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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