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Bread

Milk Bread

A yeast bread made with hops, milk, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Milk Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Pour boiling water over hops and let cool to lukewarm.

  2. Strain and squeeze hops dry.

  3. Measure hop water and add enough to make 1½ cups.

  4. Melt yeast in hop water.

  5. Mix in 3 cups of flour.

  6. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Make the dough

  1. Sift remaining flour into a large bowl.

  2. Add salt, lard, and sugar. Mix.

  3. Pour in the sponge.

  4. Rinse the basin with 1½ cups of milk. Mix well.

  5. Turn dough onto a floured surface.

  6. Knead until soft and elastic, using ½ cup of flour.

  7. Place dough back in the basin. Cover.

  8. Let rise overnight in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, knead briefly.

  2. Shape into loaves using minimal flour.

  3. Place in pans. Cover.

  4. Let rise for 1½ hours in a warm place until doubled.

  5. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C) for the first 10 minutes.

  6. Reduce to 350°F (175°C) and bake for 25-30 minutes.

  7. Cool completely before storing.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Hops + milktop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chewy crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture, softness, and some browning from its milk sugars to the crumb and crust.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the bread soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a touch of sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Knead until soft and elastic, using ½ cup of flour.. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap gas. Adding too much flour while kneading makes the dough stiff and dense, so add it gradually.

“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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