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Bread

Bread Sticks

Bread sticks are yeast‑leavened sticks baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 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 dough

  1. In a bowl, combine cooled scalded milk, sugar, shortening, salt, and dissolved Yeast Foam in water.

  2. Add 3 cups of flour and beat well until smooth.

  3. Let the dough rise until light.

Shape and rise

  1. Incorporate 1 cup of additional flour and shape the dough into sticks the size of a lead pencil.

  2. Place the sticks in molds and brush the tops with melted butter.

  3. Cover with a damp cloth and then a dry cloth while they rise.

Bake

  1. Once light, bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread sticks their structure and chew.
Yeast foam
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its proteins help give a softer crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the sticks soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the sticks brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for a light, airy texture. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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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