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 ↓
Bordyke Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Mix flour and salt in a large bowl, making a hollow in the center.
Pour yeast, gradually diluted with milk, and mix into a thick batter with surrounding flour.
Cover batter with a thick layer of flour and let rise 1 to 1.5 hours.
Knead in enough warm skimmed milk or milk-water mixture to make firm, smooth dough.
Let dough rise another hour, then divide into three loaves.
Bake
Place loaves in slightly buttered square tins or round baking pans.
Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Flour
- Forms the bulk and gluten network that gives the loaves their structure.
- Yeast
- Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps browning in the crust.
- Salt
- Adds flavor and controls the speed of yeast fermentation.
The step that matters
Knead to a firm, smooth dough. Kneading with the right amount of liquid develops gluten, which traps the gas from the yeast. Too much liquid makes the dough slack and the loaves may collapse or bake dense.
“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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