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Bread

Milk Bread

Milk Bread is a yeast‑free bread made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, butter or lard, sugar, salt, and churned milk.

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 ↓

Milk Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda together.

  3. Add the butter or lard to the flour mixture and create a well in the center.

  4. Add the castor sugar and coarse sea salt into the well.

  5. Gradually mix in enough churned milk to form a smooth dough.

Bake

  1. Transfer the dough into tins and bake in the preheated oven.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Provides the structure that holds the bread together as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to release carbon dioxide, helping it rise.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and adds richness.
Churned milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the churned milk. Adding milk slowly lets the flour absorb it evenly, so the dough reaches a smooth consistency without becoming overworked or sticky. Too much liquid at once can make the dough hard to bring together.

“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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