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Bread

Milk Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with milk, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Milk Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water.

  2. In a bowl, combine warm milk, dissolved yeast, and melted butter.

  3. Stir in sifted flour, sugar, and salt. Beat well and let rise.

  4. Once light, add enough flour to form a firm dough.

  5. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the dough in pans.

  2. Allow the dough to rise once more.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Yeast cake
Feeds on sugar and releases gas, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Its proteins form gluten, giving the dough structure to hold the gas bubbles.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that soften the crumb and aid browning.
Melted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes to browning in the baked crust.

The step that matters

Add enough flour to form a firm dough. Flour must be added gradually until the dough is firm but not stiff. Too little leaves a slack dough that cannot hold its rise, while too much makes the bread dense and dry.

“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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