Skip to main content
Main

Nice Loaf Bread

A loaf of bread made with sweet milk, warm water, salt, sugar, butter, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Nice Loaf 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.

Make the sponge

  1. In the evening, mix sweet milk, warm water, salt, sugar, butter, and enough flour to create a stiff batter to make a sponge.

  2. Let the sponge rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, dissolve a small piece of baking soda in boiling water and mix in enough flour to make a moldable dough.

  2. Fill your pans halfway with the dough and let them rise until nearly full.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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
Builds the gluten structure that holds the loaf's shape and crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the dough to produce gas that helps the loaf rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during the sponge and promotes browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until nearly full in the pans. Under-proofing leaves a dense loaf, while over-proofing can cause the structure to collapse and the bread to sink in the oven. Judging the rise by near-fullness helps the gas and gluten structure set properly during baking.

“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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes