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Bread

Vienna Bread

A yeasted roll made with flour, butter, milk, sugar, and yeast, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Vienna Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and a little salt.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the yeast and sugar until liquid.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the milk, and warm it slightly.

  4. Pour the warm milk mixture into the yeast mixture and mix well.

  5. Make a well in the center of the flour, pour in the yeast mixture, and work it into a dough.

  6. Let the dough rise in a warm place for about 2 hours.

  7. Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead for 10 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into pieces and shape into rolls.

  2. Place the rolls on a floured baking sheet and let them prove for 10 minutes.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for about 20-25 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 dough structure once worked with liquid and yeast.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps give the crumb a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavor.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough and enrich its color.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough. Kneading develops gluten, giving the dough the strength to trap gas from the yeast and rise well. Under-kneading leaves a dense, weak crumb.

“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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