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Bread

French Bread

A yeasted dough made with flour, eggs, salt, and milk, baked into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Bread

Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

French 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour with the beaten and strained egg yolks and whites.

  2. Add the salt, yeast, and enough warm milk to form a thin, light dough.

  3. Stir the mixture gently without kneading.

  4. Divide the dough into three equal portions and place them in three wooden dishes.

  5. Cover and let the dough rise.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Once risen, turn the dough out into the oven and bake until done.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Fine flour
Provides the main structure that holds the bread's crumb once baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Egg whites
Add protein that helps the dough set and give a lighter structure.
Good yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour and yeast, forming the dough and adding softness.

The step that matters

Stirring without kneading. Gentle stirring keeps the gluten network loose and the dough light. Heavy kneading would develop more gluten and make the bread tougher, while the trapped gas from rising needs the dough to stay airy.

“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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