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Bread and Muffins

A yeast bread and muffin recipe using lukewarm liquid, yeast, salt, sugar, flour, optional lard, and butter for greasing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Bread and Muffins

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine lukewarm liquid and yeast, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Add salt and sugar, mixing until well dissolved.

  3. Stir in flour with a wooden spoon until the dough is stiff enough to turn out onto a board.

  4. If desired, add lard for shortening.

  5. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking.

Rise and shape

  1. Place the dough in a greased bowl, brush with melted butter, cover, and let rise in a warm place (about 75°F) for 2 hours or until light.

  2. Knead the dough again, return to the bowl, cover, and let rise for another hour or until light.

  3. Form the dough into loaves or rolls, place in greased pans, brush with butter, cover, and let stand for 1.5 hours.

Bake and refresh

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  2. To refresh stale bread, wet it with cold water and rebake for 20 to 45 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. Flour + buttertop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Liquid (water or milk)
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough until smooth and elastic. Kneading aligns gluten strands so the dough can trap the gas yeast produces. Too little kneading leaves a dense loaf, while adding too much flour while kneading makes it dry and tough.

“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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