Skip to main content
Main

Milk Yeast Bread

A leavened bread made with milk, boiling water, sugar, salt, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Milk Yeast Bread

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Milk Yeast Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the milk and boiling water in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, salt, and flour.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

  4. Cover the bowl tightly.

  5. Place the covered bowl in another bowl or kettle filled with warm water. Maintain the water temperature.

  6. Let the mixture rise for about 5 hours, beating it every half hour until the last hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Once risen, make a well in 2 quarts of flour.

  2. Pour the batter into the well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water.

  4. Add the dissolved baking soda to the mixture.

  5. Knead the dough well.

  6. Shape the dough into loaves.

  7. Let the loaves rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.

  8. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure and chew.
Milk
Adds moisture, softness, and a tender crumb along with browning from its sugars.
Baking soda
Reacts to produce gas that helps the loaves rise without yeast.
Sugar
Feeds browning reactions for a golden crust and adds mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Maintaining the warm water bath during the long rise. The batter rises slowly only when kept warm; if the temperature drops, fermentation and gas production slow, leaving a dense loaf. Keeping the bowl covered also prevents a dry skin from forming.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes