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Prize Bread

A yeast bread made with water, milk, lard, sugar, yeast, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prize Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Knead the dough hard the night before.

  3. Wrap the dough in a blanket and place it in a warm spot.

  4. In the morning, knead the dough again.

Shape and rise

  1. When it rises, mold it into loaves.

  2. Let it rise again in the pans.

  3. When it has risen enough, wet the top of the bread to keep the crust soft.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 40 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of the loaf.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its sugars help the crust brown.
Lard
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Homemade yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it an airy structure.

The step that matters

Wetting the top before baking. Moisture on the surface keeps the crust soft and flexible early in baking, so it does not set too hard and crack before the loaf has fully risen.

“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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