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French Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, beer yeast, flour, butter, sugar, and salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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French Bread

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 ↓

French 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 starter

  1. Mix warm milk with small beer yeast.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add fine flour until the mixture is the stiffness of batter.

  4. Cover the mixture.

  5. Let rise in a warm place.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together butter, powdered sugar, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Incorporate the remaining flour into the creamed mixture.

  3. Make a hole in the center of the dough.

  4. Pour the risen batter into the hole.

  5. Sprinkle flour over the dough and cover.

  6. Knead the dough until smooth.

  7. Let rise in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough as desired.

  2. Place the dough on tin plates.

  3. Let rise for 20 minutes.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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.

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 + 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. Milk + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Small beer yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that traps gas and sets the crumb as the bread bakes.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Warm milk
Adds moisture and proteins that help browning and a soft crumb.
Powdered loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until bubbly before adding flour. The yeast needs warmth and time to ferment the starter. If it is underproofed, the dough will be dense; the rise develops the gas that lightens the loaf.

“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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