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 ↓
Milk Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine sugar, butter or lard, and salt in a mixing bowl.
Add scalded milk.
Let it cool to lukewarm.
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm mixture.
Stir in flour until a stiff dough forms.
Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface.
Knead until smooth and springy, using the seventh cup of flour as needed.
Lightly brush the dough with melted lard.
Cover the dough.
Let it rise in a warm place (70 to 90°F) until doubled in size.
Punch down the dough.
Knead slightly without removing it from the bowl.
Let it rise again until doubled in size.
Shape and bake
Turn the dough onto a floured surface.
Divide into three equal parts (about 1 pound each).
Shape into loaves.
Place two loaves in a buttered pan, brushing between them with melted butter.
Place the remaining loaf in a smaller pan.
Cover the pans.
Let rise until light.
Bake in an oven at 360 to 400°F for 45 minutes.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
- Milk
- Adds richness, softness and browning to the crumb and crust.
- Butter or lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the bread moist.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
The step that matters
Knead until smooth and springy. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the yeast gas. Too little kneading gives a weak, dense loaf, while adding too much flour makes the bread dry and tough.
“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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