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Bread

Bread with Buttermilk

A yeasted bread made with buttermilk, flour, and yeast, baked after overnight fermentation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bread with Buttermilk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Bring buttermilk to a boil.

  2. Pour the boiled buttermilk into a crock with sifted flour.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Add yeast and enough flour to make a thick batter.

  5. Stir the sponge well.

  6. Let it sit overnight.

Mix and shape

  1. Sift flour into a bread pan.

  2. Pour the sponge into the center of the pan.

  3. Stir in some flour.

  4. Let it rest until after breakfast.

  5. Mix and knead for about 30 minutes.

  6. Knead as little as possible afterward.

  7. When the dough is light, mold it into loaves.

Bake

  1. Bake.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tea + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + teatop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity works with the yeast and gives the bread a tangy flavor and tender crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure.

The step that matters

Knead as little as possible after the initial mixing. Extra kneading toughens the gluten network once the dough has risen, which can make the loaves dense and tight-textured rather than light.

“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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