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French Twists

Braided bread made with warm milk, potato yeast, butter, eggs, and flour, baked in buttered tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 1 quart warm milk, 1 coffee cupful potato yeast, a little salt, and enough flour to make a stiff batter. Let rise.

  2. When very light, work in 2 tablespoons butter, 1 egg, and enough flour to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut dough into strips, braid, and let rise again.

  2. Bake on buttered tins for an hour.

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  2. Milk + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + coffeetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Coffee + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,445 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast.
Potato yeast
Leavens the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the bread's shape.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build a light, airy crumb. Shaping or baking before the dough has risen enough leaves a dense loaf.

“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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