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Bread

White Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with flour, potato water, milk, lard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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White Bread

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Soak the yeast in lukewarm water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add 1½ cups flour and keep in a warm place.

  3. Three hours later, add the first mixture to the pint of lukewarm potato water and 2 cups flour.

  4. Beat well with an egg beater and set in a warm place until morning.

Make and rise the dough

  1. Pour scalded milk over the mixture when lukewarm, then add yeast and knead in as much flour as the dough will hold.

  2. Put away in a warm place until very light, then knead down.

  3. Let it double in size, then shape into 5 loaves.

Bake

  1. Place in tins and let it double in size again, then bake for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Builds the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its shape.
Yeast cake
Produces carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Potato
Adds moisture and starch, helping the bread stay soft and fresh.
Milk
Adds moisture, richness and a softer crumb, and helps browning.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the bread soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Cool the scalded milk before adding the yeast. Scalding heats the milk to a high temperature. If it is still hot when added, it can kill the yeast, so the dough will fail to rise. Wait until it is only lukewarm.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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