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Bread

Soda Bread

A quick bread made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, water, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Soda Bread

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the cream of tartar into the flour in a large bowl.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the warm water and add it to the flour mixture.

  4. Stir in a little salt and gradually add sweet milk until a dough forms.

Bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and place them in the oven.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes until the loaves are light 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the loaves together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas, leavening the dough.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, bringing the flour into a workable dough.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the warm water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the flour so the leavening reaction is spread throughout the dough. Clumps can leave bitter, yellow pockets and uneven rising.

“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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