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Milk Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with flour, butter or margarine, maize syrup or sugar, scalded milk, water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Milk Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, margarine or butter, maize syrup or sugar, scalded milk, water, yeast, and salt.

  2. Mix until a dough forms.

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

  4. Place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover the dough.

  5. Let it rise until doubled in size.

  6. Punch down the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves.

  2. Place the loaves in greased pans.

  3. Let the loaves rise again until doubled.

  4. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  5. Bake the loaves for 30-40 minutes 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Syrup + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and chew.
Margarine or butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Maize syrup or sugar
Sweetens the bread and feeds the yeast, supporting rise and browning.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that soften the crumb and aid browning.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during proofing, leavening the dough so it rises.

The step that matters

Let the loaves rise again until doubled. Under-proofed loaves stay dense and may split in the oven, while over-proofed dough can collapse. The dough is ready when it has visibly doubled, because yeast gas expansion is what gives the loaves their light texture.

“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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