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Dessert

Bread Sticks

Bread sticks are small, elongated rolls made from a yeast dough with milk, butter, sugar, salt, and flour.

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 ↓

Bread Sticks

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Cream the butter and add the sugar.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the hot milk and cool to lukewarm.

  3. Add the yeast and fold in the egg white.

  4. Gradually mix in the sifted flour.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.

  2. Shape into small balls and roll into long thin sticks.

  3. Place the dough in stick pans.

  4. Let rise again.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 breadsticks their structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness while helping the dough stay pliable.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps set the structure and supports the rise.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.

The step that matters

Cool the milk to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is sensitive to heat. Liquid that is too hot can kill it, so the dough will not rise properly. Cooling the milk to lukewarm keeps the yeast active so it can produce the gas that makes the dough rise.

“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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