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Bread with Buttermilk

A yeasted bread made with buttermilk and flour, left to rise overnight and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bread with Buttermilk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Bring buttermilk to a boil and pour into a crock with sifted flour.

  2. Let cool, then add yeast and enough flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Stir the sponge well and let it sit overnight.

Make and bake the bread

  1. In the morning, sift flour into a bread pan and pour the sponge in the center.

  2. Stir in some flour and let it stand until after breakfast.

  3. Mix and knead for about 30 minutes, then mold into loaves with minimal kneading.

  4. Let rise until light, then bake.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tea + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + teatop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity works with the yeast and gives the bread a tangy flavour and tender crumb.
Flour
Its gluten forms the structure that traps gas and lets the loaves hold their shape.
Yeast
Its fermentation produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.

The step that matters

Let the sponge rise until light before baking. Yeast needs time to ferment the sponge fully. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while the gluten network must trap enough gas to give a light 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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