Skip to main content
Bread

White Bread

A simple yeast bread made with water, milk, yeast, butter, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
White 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 ↓

White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine water, milk, yeast, butter, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is quite stiff.

  3. Let the dough stand for 5 hours.

  4. Knead the dough, using as little flour as possible.

  5. Allow it to rise for 1 hour.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake the bread.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that traps gas and sets the crumb as the dough bakes.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas, which makes the dough rise and become airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and some sugar and fat, giving a softer crumb and browner crust.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Knead with as little flour as possible. Extra flour dries the dough and makes the bread dense and tough. A soft, slightly sticky dough stays moist and develops a tender crumb, so resist adding flour while kneading.

“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.

More white bread recipes

Plain 11Manitoba 3 See all 90 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes