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Bread

Milk Rising Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, water, sugar, salt, and baking soda, then baked at 400°F.

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

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 sponge

  1. In a quart tin bucket, combine warm water, warm sweet milk, salt, sugar, and baking soda.

  2. Mix in enough flour to create a thick batter that water won't rise on top.

  3. Let the mixture rise in a warm place for 6 hours until foaming.

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bread pan, combine 4 quarts of flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour and add enough warm milk to make a soft dough.

  3. Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to your hands.

  4. Shape into small loaves and let rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its sugars help the crust brown.
Sugar
Feeds the rising and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Baking soda
Raises the dough's alkalinity, which can affect browning and crumb in a small amount.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from the rise. Stop when the dough no longer sticks to your hands, since a slack dough will not hold the loaf's shape or rise well.

“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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