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Mush Bread

A bread made with sweet milk, butter, meal, eggs, and salt, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Mush Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until hot.

  2. Sift in the meal while stirring constantly until smooth and stiff.

  3. Add the butter and remove from heat to cool.

  4. Lightly beat the yolks of the eggs and add them to the mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered baking pans.

  2. Place the pans in a larger pan of hot water and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter and beaten whites trap air, helping it rise and set light.
Meal
Cooked into the hot milk, it thickens the mixture into a stiff base that gives the bread its body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer texture and a more tender crumb.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that is thickened by the meal and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a foam and folded in gently. Stirring them hard deflates the foam, so the bread bakes denser and rises less.

“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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