Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Bread-making
Ingredients
Directions
Knead the dough on a floured surface for several minutes until smooth.
Form the dough into a round mass or large loaf.
Place the loaf in a greased bread pan and sprinkle lightly with flour or grease the top with lard or butter.
Cover the pan and let the dough rise in a warm place (70°F to 80°F) until it doubles in size, about 1 to 2 hours.
Grease baking pans with lard or cooking oil.
Knead the risen dough down in the pan, cut into equal parts, and shape each into a smooth, oblong loaf.
Place the loaves in the prepared baking pan, greasing the tops and between them to ensure easy separation.
Let the loaves rise again before baking.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
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