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 ↓
Yeast 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.
Make the dough
Combine lukewarm water, sweet milk, sugar, butter, salt, and dissolved yeast in a bowl.
Add flour gradually to form a stiff batter.
Let the mixture rise until it bubbles.
Add more flour and let it rise again.
Shape and bake
Mold the dough and place it into tins.
Allow it to rise until it is even with the top of the tin.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 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).
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
- Yeast
- Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and bubble.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that traps gas and gives the bread its structure.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavor.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture, softness, and browning from its milk sugars and proteins.
The step that matters
Letting the dough rise until it is even with the top of the tin. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or go flat. The yeast's gas production and gluten stretch need to be judged by the dough's size and bubbling, not just by time.
“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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