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Bread

Tea. Oakes

A yeast bread with butter, milk, egg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tea. Oakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter in warm milk.

  2. Add yeast and salt, then mix into the flour.

  3. Incorporate the egg and sugar.

  4. Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to your hands.

Rise and bake

  1. Let it rise for 2-3 hours.

  2. Roll out the dough and let it rise for another hour near a warm place.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the structure that holds the dough together and traps gas as it rises.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough bind and bake tender.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour and texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning during baking.
Milk
Provides moisture and proteins that add softness and help browning.

The step that matters

Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to your hands. Kneading develops gluten, the flour proteins that form a stretchy network. Without enough kneading the dough stays sticky and cannot trap the gas from the yeast, so it rises poorly.

“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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