Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
White Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Dissolve the yeast in 1 quart of lukewarm water.
Stir in enough sifted flour to make a rather stiff sponge.
Let the sponge rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until it begins to collapse.
Make the dough
Add 1 pint of lukewarm water, salt, sugar, and butter to the sponge.
Mix in enough sifted flour to form a moderately stiff dough.
Knead the dough well until it is light.
Shape, rise and bake
Shape the dough into loaves and place in well-greased pans for final rising.
Knead thoroughly again before baking.
Bake until light and it springs in the oven.
Cool the bread by leaning it against something and covering it with a cloth.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the bread rise.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
- Butter
- Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.
The step that matters
Letting the sponge rise until it begins to collapse. Yeast needs time to multiply and build gas and gluten strength before the dough is finished. Under-rising leaves a dense loaf, while over-rising weakens the structure so it may fall.
“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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