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A simple loaf of bread made with flour, milk, and optional cream or buttermilk, baked until golden.

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

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

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

  2. Gradually add the skimmed milk and mix until a dough forms.

  3. Knead the dough lightly until it is smooth.

  4. Let the dough rise for 1 to 1½ hours until doubled in size.

  5. If using, mix in cream or sweet buttermilk for added richness.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease shallow round earthen pans with butter.

  3. Divide the dough into three loaves and place in the prepared pans.

  4. Bake for 1 hour 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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's structure and body as the bread sets in the oven.
Skimmed milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a dough and adds moisture to the crumb.
Cream
Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb and adding fat.
Sweet buttermilk
Adds moisture and mild acidity, giving a softer crumb and tender texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast gas expands the dough's gluten network, and under-rising leaves a dense loaf while over-rising can collapse it, so the dough should reach about double its size before shaping.

“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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