Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Superior Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Scald the sour milk and let it cool.
In a large bowl, make a hole in the center of the flour.
Add the cooled whey, salt, and yeast into the hole.
Stir the mixture until it is stiff.
Cover with a thick cloth to keep warm, especially in cold weather.
In the morning, knead the dough, adding flour until it is stiff enough.
Keep the dough warm until it rises.
Place the dough in pans to rise again.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
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