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Bread with Buttermilk

Bread made from a buttermilk sponge and flour, baked in a breadpan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bread with Buttermilk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. The evening before baking, bring 2 quarts of sweet buttermilk to a boil, or boil sour milk and use the same quantity of whey.

  2. Pour the buttermilk or whey into a crock with 1 small cup of flour.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add yeast and enough flour to make a thick batter.

Mix and knead

  1. In the morning, sift flour into a breadpan and pour the sponge in the center.

  2. Stir in some of the flour and let it stand until after breakfast.

  3. Mix and knead for about 30 minutes, kneading longer for better results.

Shape and bake

  1. When the dough is light, mold it into loaves, kneading as little as possible.

  2. Bake until done, ensuring not to bake too hard.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Provides acidity and moisture, and its acid works with the yeast sponge to develop flavor.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and holds the rise.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap gas and rise. Kneading too long or too much after shaping can toughen the crumb, so keep handling after the dough is light to a minimum.

“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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