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Bread

Rice Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Rice Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. If the rice is cooked in milk, use it the same day and cool before using.

  2. If the rice is cold, hard, or lumpy, add a little milk and warm it gently in a bowl set in hot water, stirring until smooth.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter and sugar together.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs, 2 cups of flour, and warm milk.

  3. Gradually add the remaining flour.

  4. Mix in the rice and yeast.

  5. Beat well for 10 minutes.

  6. Cover the mixture and let it rise overnight.

Bake

  1. Let the dough rise in the pans for about 1½ hours, or until it rises above the top of the pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) as this bread browns quickly.

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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Boiled rice
Adds moisture that helps keep the crumb soft.
Warm milk
Adds liquid and moisture, and helps activate the yeast.

The step that matters

Warm the rice gently when it is cold or lumpy. Cold, hard rice does not blend into the dough evenly and leaves lumps. Warming it slowly in hot water with a little milk softens the grains and lets them mix in smoothly, so the dough stays even in texture.

“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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