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Preparation of White Bread

A basic white bread made with milk, yeast, flour, butter, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Preparation of White Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Combine scalded milk, boiling water, butter, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water and add to the mixture.

  3. Gradually add flour until a dough forms.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

  5. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a greased pan.

  2. Allow it to rise again until it has risen above the edge of the pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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.
Yeast cake
Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaf rise.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture and richness, and softens the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough until smooth and elastic. Kneading aligns gluten strands so the dough can trap the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense and crumbly.

“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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