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Bread Sticks

Bread sticks are made from a yeast dough with butter, milk, sugar, salt, and egg white, then baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Bread Sticks

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter in the milk.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in the cold water.

  3. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.

  4. Combine all ingredients with the flour and knead well.

  5. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, divide the dough into balls the size of large walnuts.

  2. Roll each ball into sticks about 1 foot long.

  3. Place the sticks 2 inches apart on long pans.

  4. Let them rise for 30 minutes in a cool place.

  5. Bake for 25 minutes at 350°F (175°C) until dry and crisp.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the dough.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that aid browning and softness.
Egg white
Its whipped foam adds air and helps the sticks lighten and set.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Baking until dry and crisp. Breadsticks are meant to be dry and crisp, so the bake must run long enough to drive off moisture. Pulling them early leaves them soft and chewy inside.

“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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