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Bread

Yeast-leavened bread with sweet milk, currants, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the bread dough

  1. Raise the pressed yeast overnight.

  2. In the morning, mold the dough well and let it rise again.

  3. Roll and cut into round cakes, cover the top with melted butter, then fold it over and let it rise again.

  4. Bake in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C).

Make the buns

  1. For buns, mix sweet milk, yeast, and a little sugar to make a sponge at night.

  2. In the morning, add more sugar, butter, currants, and nutmeg, then mix and let it rise again.

  3. When light, roll out, cut, and roll the edges in melted butter, then place in tins and let rise again.

  4. Wet the tops with milk and sugar or sugar and egg white before baking in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C).

Make the muffins

  1. For muffins, combine flour, sweet milk, egg, sugar, butter, cream of tartar, and baking soda, then bake in a quick oven.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provides the structure that holds the dough and batter together as it bakes.
Pressed yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the dough so it becomes light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps the dough brown on the surface.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the muffins.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so baking soda reacts and helps the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, lifting the muffins.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for a light, airy crumb. Rolling or baking before the dough has risen again leaves the bread dense and heavy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, nutmeg, flour, egg, butter, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, nutmeg, flour, egg, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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