Name: Salt-raised Bread
Ingredients: 1 teacup milk; boiling water (to bring milk to blood temperature); ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon cornmeal or graham flour; 2 teaspoons wheat flour

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Salt-raised Bread

Ingredients

1 teacup milk
boiling water (to bring milk to blood temperature)
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon cornmeal or graham flour
2 teaspoons wheat flour

Directions

Make the starter

Pour boiling water into a teacup of milk until it reaches about 90°F (32°C).
Add ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt and ¼ teaspoon sugar.
Stir in 1 tablespoon cornmeal or graham flour and 2 teaspoons wheat flour until the mixture resembles pancake batter.
Set the bowl in warm water to rise.
If water gathers on top, dust in a little flour and stir.
If mixed in the morning, it will rise by noon.

Make and bake the bread

Mix as you would other bread.
Place the dough in earthenware pans.
Let the dough stand until light.
Bake in the oven when ready.

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.

Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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

Milk: Provides liquid and richness that give the bread a soft, tender crumb.
Wheat flour: Builds gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its shape.
Cornmeal or graham flour: Adds coarser texture and flavour and helps the starter ferment.

The step that matters

Keep the milk at blood temperature when adding the boiling water. Water that is too hot kills the wild yeast and bacteria that raise the starter, while water that is too cool slows fermentation. About 90°F keeps the culture active so the dough rises properly.

“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.