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Bread

Bread

A simple yeast bread made with flour, milk, water, and homemade hop and potato yeast, optionally with potatoes.

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

Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. In a large bowl, create a sponge by mixing 1 cup of warm water, 1 cup of milk, and 1 cup of yeast in the center of 4 cups of flour.

  2. Beat the sponge with a wooden spoon for 15 minutes and let it rise overnight in a warm place.

Knead and shape

  1. In the morning, mix and knead the dough for 30 minutes, adding flour to form a stiff dough.

  2. Shape the dough into small loaves and place them in pans to rise again in a warm area until light.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the flour, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the crumb and helps browning.
Potatoes
Optional addition that can add moisture and a softer texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough to a stiff texture. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from the yeast. Adding flour until the dough is stiff controls stickiness, so the loaves hold their shape and rise well.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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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