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 ↓
Milk Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Pour boiling water over hops and let it cool to lukewarm.
Strain the hops and squeeze them dry.
Measure the hop water and add enough additional water to make 1½ cups.
Melt the yeast in the hop water and add 3 cups of flour.
Cover the mixture and let it rise in a warm place until it fills the basin about two-thirds full.
Make the dough
Sift 3 more cups of flour into a large vessel.
Add salt, lard, and sugar to the flour and mix.
Pour the sponge into the vessel and rinse the basin with 1½ cups of milk.
Add the milk to the flour mixture and mix.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead into a soft, elastic mass, using ½ cup of flour.
Return the dough to the basin, cover, and let it rise overnight in a warm place (70°F).
Shape and bake
In the morning, knead the dough briefly to form loaves, using only 1 teaspoon of flour for the last kneading.
Place the loaves in pans, cover, and let them rise for 1½ hours at 90°F until doubled in size.
Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes.
Reduce the heat to moderate and bake for 25–30 minutes.
Let the bread cool completely before storing.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Hops + milktop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and elastic stretch.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Milk
- Adds richness and softness to the crumb and helps browning on the crust.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the bread soft.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.
The step that matters
Knead the dough to a soft, elastic mass using only the measured flour. Kneading develops the gluten that traps gas from the yeast. Adding too much extra flour makes the dough stiff and dense, so it rises less and bakes up tougher.
“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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