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Bread

Italian Bread

A buttered, cornmeal‑dusted bread made from risen dough, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Italian Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Work the softened butter into the risen dough.

  2. Roll the dough out to 1 inch thick.

  3. Cut the dough into strips that are 1 inch wide and 7 to 8 inches long.

  4. Sift cornmeal over the strips.

Rise and bake

  1. Place the strips on a greased baking sheet, ensuring they do not touch.

  2. Let them rise until light, about 1 hour.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread dough
Provides the structure and chewy crumb that the strips rise and bake into.
Softened butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderising the crumb and carrying flavour.
Cornmeal
Dusted on top for a gritty texture and golden, crisp surface.

The step that matters

Let them rise until light. The strips need time to rise before baking so they become light and airy. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while the strips must be spaced apart so they can expand without fusing.

“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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