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Bread

To Make White Bread

A yeast bread made with flour, butter, eggs, milk, and water, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Make White Bread

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 ↓

To Make White Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, butter, yeast, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a little water until frothy.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture.

  4. Gradually add enough new milk to form a creamy dough.

  5. Knead the dough until light, then place it back in the bowl.

Rise and bake

  1. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let it rise near a warm fire for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Shape the dough into rolls and prick them with a fork 10 minutes before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Eggs
Add protein for structure and richness, and moisture to the dough.
New milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that help the dough brown and soften.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise near a warm fire. Yeast works best at a steady warm temperature. Too cold and the dough rises slowly; too hot and the yeast can die or the crumb can turn coarse, so the rise needs watching.

“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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