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Bread

Milk Yeast for Bread

Bread made by fermenting milk and flour, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Milk Yeast for 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.

Make the sponge

  1. Boil the milk and salt.

  2. Let the milk cool, then stir in enough flour to make a batter as thin as cream.

  3. Keep the batter in a warm place for about 6 hours to rise.

Make the dough and bake

  1. To make the bread, add flour until it forms a soft dough.

  2. Mix in the lard and let it rise again for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + creamtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that support a soft crumb and gentle browning.
Flour
Forms the batter and then the dough, providing the structure of the bread.
Lard
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise in a warm place. The batter relies on yeast fermentation to rise and develop flavor. Too cold slows the rise, while the long wait gives the yeast time to build the gas and flavor that the dough needs.

“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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