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Bread

Federal Bread

A yeast bread made with eggs, butter, sugar, salt, sweet cream, and flour, baked in layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Federal Bread

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine eggs, butter, sugar, salt, sweet cream, and yeast.

  2. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

  3. Let the dough rise until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Place two layers in each pie pan (this makes three pans).

  3. Let them rise again.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Butter between the layers, cut into pie-shaped pieces, and serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough set and hold its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, softening the crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the dough soft and tender.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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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