Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓
Yeast Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Mix flour with coarse sea salt in a large bowl.
Make a well in the center, add cream of tartar yeast and warm water.
Stir in enough flour to make a thick paste, then lightly sprinkle flour on top.
Rise and knead
Let it stand in a warm corner for 1 hour.
Add enough warm water to form a good dough and knead well.
Allow to stand overnight in a warm place.
Punch down the dough once, let it rise again, and knead until spongy.
Shape and bake
Place in greased tins and let it rise well.
Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) at first, then gradually decrease the heat.
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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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure as its proteins develop into gluten when kneaded.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can form, giving the dough its elastic texture.
The step that matters
Bake in a hot oven at first. A hot start causes the trapped gas and steam to expand quickly, giving good oven spring and a well-risen loaf. Lowering the heat afterward lets the interior cook through without over-browning the crust.
“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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