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Bread

Milk Yeast Bread

A bread made with wheat middlings, milk, boiling water, and a yeast mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Milk Yeast Bread

Why it works: Wheat and milk 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 ↓

Milk Yeast Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dry mixture

  1. Combine wheat middlings, sugar, ginger, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Store the mixture in an airtight container.

Make the yeast

  1. Take 2 tablespoons of the dry mixture and place it in a cup.

  2. Pour boiling water over it to scald.

  3. Stir until it reaches a yeast-like consistency.

  4. Let it sit in a warm place.

Make the sponge and dough

  1. Mix 1 cup of new milk, 1 cup of boiling water, and a little salt.

  2. Gradually stir in flour until the mixture is thick like fritters.

  3. Add the yeast mixture.

  4. Place the mixture in a kettle of hot water (as hot as you can bear).

  5. Let it sit for 2-3 hours until foaming.

  6. Mix your bread dough.

  7. Place it in pans.

  8. Let it rise for about 1 hour before baking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Wheat middlings
Provides the bulk of the dry mixture, adding body and a coarse, hearty texture to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to produce gas that helps the bread rise and open up.
New milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Flour
Builds the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the bread its shape.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness and some browning.

The step that matters

Let the sponge foam fully before shaping. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough carbon dioxide to leaven the dough. Stopping early leaves a dense loaf, so the sponge should show clear foaming before it is mixed into the dough.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, sugar, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, sugar, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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