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Milk Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, sugar, flour, lard or butter, and salt, baked after two rises.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Milk Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in lukewarm milk.

  2. Add one and one-half quarts of sifted flour.

  3. Beat until smooth.

  4. Cover and set to rise in a warm place, free from draft, about one and one-half hours.

  5. When light, add lard or butter, remainder of flour, or enough to make dough that can be handled, and salt.

  6. Knead until smooth and elastic.

  7. Place in a well-greased bowl.

  8. Cover, let rise again until double in bulk, about two hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold into loaves.

  2. Place in well-greased bread pans, filling them half full.

  3. Cover and let rise again until double in bulk, about one hour.

  4. Bake forty to fifty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

768Calories
21 gProtein
22 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Milk
Liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar, forming the dough.
Sifted flour
Provides gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its crumb.
Yeast
Ferments sugars and produces carbon dioxide, making the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning in the crust.
Lard
Fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture of the bread.

The step that matters

Kneading until smooth and elastic. Kneading develops gluten, forming a stretchy network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense.

“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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