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Bread

French Bread

A yeasted loaf made with flour, milk, yeast, butter, sugar, and salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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French Bread

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 ↓

French Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a cavity in the center.

  2. Pour the lukewarm milk and yeast into the cavity and mix with some flour to form a light sponge.

  3. Cover and let it prove in a warm place for 1 hour.

Knead and prove

  1. Add the remaining lukewarm milk, butter, sugar, and salt to the sponge.

  2. Knead until the dough is stiff, then let it prove for another hour.

  3. Knead again and let it prove for an additional hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into bricks and place them on baking tins.

  2. Let them prove in a warm place for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + milktop 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).

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

Fine flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during proving, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and some sugars and proteins that help the crust brown.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer flavor and tender texture.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and help with browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Knead until the dough is stiff. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Too little kneading leaves a weak dough that rises poorly and bakes up dense.

“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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