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Bread

Cream Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with butter, milk, water, flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and yeast, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cream Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the butter in the scalding milk.

  2. Add the cold water and let the mixture cool.

  3. Add the sifted flour and beat until smooth.

  4. Dissolve the yeast in a little tepid water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Set the mixture in a warm place for 2 hours.

Mix and knead the dough

  1. Add the sugar, salt, and dissolved baking soda.

  2. Stir in enough sifted flour to handle the dough.

  3. Knead for 20 minutes, or longer if sticky.

  4. Let rise for 2 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Form into loaves and knead each loaf for 5 minutes.

  2. Let rise for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  4. Rub the top crust with sweet butter.

  5. Let cool without covering.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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
Ferments sugars to produce gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that soften the crumb and aid browning.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Knead the dough thoroughly after adding flour. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneading gives a dense loaf, while the dough should be adjusted only until it is handleable and not sticky.

“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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