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Bread

Vienna Bread

Vienna Bread is a yeast bread made with flour, yeast, milk, water, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vienna Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Add the salt to the lukewarm wetting (about 80°F or 27°C).

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter and beat thoroughly.

  4. Add more flour to make a soft dough and knead until soft and velvety.

  5. Place the dough in a buttered bowl, brush the top with melted butter, cover with a towel, and let rise for 3 hours or until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves or rolls and place on pans.

  2. Butter the tops and let stand for 1 hour or until light.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until nicely browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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 bread rise.
Wetting (milk and water)
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the dough becomes workable.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to expand the dough fully. Stopping early leaves a dense loaf, while the rise should be judged by size and light texture rather than the clock alone.

“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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