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Bread

Short or Straight-dough Process

A simple yeast bread made with water or milk, sugar, salt, optional fat, and bread flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Short or Straight-dough Process

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil the water or scald the milk.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, salt, and fat (if using).

  3. Pour the hot liquid over the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  4. Mix the yeast with a little of the lukewarm liquid and add it to the rest.

  5. If possible, let it sit in a warm place (not over 86°F) for one hour.

  6. If not, add flour gradually, kneading until the dough doesn't stick to the bowl or hands (about 10 minutes).

  7. Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 hour at 86°F.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut down the dough from the sides of the bowl and grease your hands slightly.

  2. Knead a little and let it rise again for 1 hour.

  3. Divide the dough into portions, mold them, and place in greased pans.

  4. Allow to rise until a light touch leaves a slight dent.

  5. Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 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

Bread flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Active dry yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments sugars, making the dough rise.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.
Milk or water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form; milk adds softness and browning.
Fat
Tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture of the finished bread.

The step that matters

Kneading in the flour. Adding flour too quickly or stopping too early leaves the dough sticky or underdeveloped. Kneading until it no longer sticks to the bowl or hands builds the gluten structure that traps gas and lets the loaf rise well.

“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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