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Bread

Vienna Bread

A yeast-leavened loaf made with water or milk, flour, yeast, salt, butter, and baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Vienna Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix tepid water or sweet milk, flour, and baker's yeast thoroughly.

  2. Set the mixture in a warm place until it rises, about 3 hours.

  3. Dissolve salt in 1 pint of water and add to the mixture along with butter.

  4. Knead the dough, adding enough flour to make it stiff enough to mold.

  5. Let the dough rise again until it has doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the dough into loaves and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°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.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Baker's yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Salt
Strengthens the gluten and controls how fast the yeast ferments.

The step that matters

Adding enough flour when kneading. The dough must be stiff enough to hold its shape for molding. Too little flour leaves it sticky and slack, so loaves spread and bake poorly, while too much makes the bread dense and dry.

“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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