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Bread

Milk Rising Bread

A quick bread made with milk, cornmeal, flour, lard, and baking soda that rises overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Milk Rising Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil ½ cup of milk overnight and mix with enough Southern cornmeal to make a soft batter.

  2. Let the batter stand overnight at about 75°F (24°C).

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, boil another ½ cup of milk and mix with cold water until warm.

  2. Combine this with the overnight batter, adding 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and enough flour to make a soft batter.

  3. Set the mixture in a warm place (at least 100°F or 38°C) and let it rise until doubled in size, about 3 hours.

  4. Once risen, add an equal amount of water mixed with ½ teaspoon baking soda, 1 rounded tablespoon lard, and more salt if desired, then knead in enough flour to make a soft dough.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Milk and flour 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

Milk
Its proteins and sugars add tenderness, moisture and browning to the crumb and crust.
Southern corn meal
Its starch and proteins thicken the early batter and add a distinct corn flavour and texture.
Flour
Its gluten forms the network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to release gas, helping the bread rise and lighten.
Lard
Fat that tenderises the crumb and adds richness and softness to the bread.

The step that matters

Holding the batter warm while it rises. Yeast-style fermentation is slowed by cool temperatures, so the dough may not double if the warm place is too cool. Keeping it near 100°F supports steady gas production and a light, open crumb.

“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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