Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Rye Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Measure the salt, butter, and sugar into a small saucepan. Add the scalded milk and boiling water.
Let the mixture stand until lukewarm.
Measure a tablespoon of lukewarm water into a muffin tin. Break the yeast cake into small pieces and mix it with the lukewarm water.
Add the yeast mixture to the lukewarm liquids in the saucepan.
Strain half the rye flour into the saucepan and beat the mixture thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add the remaining flour and beat vigorously again.
Continue adding flour until the dough does not stick to your finger.
Dust your board with flour and knead the dough until smooth and elastic.
Place the kneaded dough in a saucepan. Put the saucepan in a dish-pan filled with hot water, ensuring the water is not too hot to touch.
Cover the saucepan and let the dough rise until it doubles in size.
While the dough is rising, butter your bread pan.
Once the dough has doubled, knead it again, shape it into a loaf, and place it in the bread pan.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,320 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rye + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
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