Skip to main content
Bread

Vienna Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, water, salt, flour, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vienna Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the Royal Yeast in 3 tablespoons of milk and water.

  2. Combine the dissolved yeast with the remaining milk and water.

  3. Add salt and enough warmed flour to form a slight dough.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and not sticky.

  5. Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover the dough.

  6. Let it rise in a warm place for 3 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn out the dough and cut it into small rolls.

  2. Knead each roll slightly.

  3. Place the rolls in a greased tin and grease the tops with melted butter.

  4. Cover the rolls and let them rise until doubled in size.

  5. Grease again.

  6. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Royal yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds richness, softness and browning from milk sugars and proteins.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and helps the tops brown.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. The rolls need enough time for yeast to build gas and stretch the gluten. Under-proofed rolls stay dense, while over-proofed ones may collapse in the oven.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes