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French Bread

A yeast bread made with flour, milk, water, sugar, salt, butter, baked at 400°F.

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

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 ↓

French Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Make a hole in the middle of the flour.

  2. Add the lukewarm milk and water mixed with yeast to the hole.

  3. Stir well and let it stand for 5–6 minutes to settle.

  4. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into the flour, leaving sediment behind.

  5. Stir until it reaches a thick batter consistency.

  6. Cover with a cloth.

  7. Let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Add sugar, salt, and enough lukewarm milk with melted butter to form a moderately stiff dough.

  2. Let it rise for another hour.

  3. Shape the dough into bricks.

  4. Place the bricks on tins, lightly covered with a cloth.

  5. Let them rise for 15–20 minutes.

  6. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Fine flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Active dry yeast
Ferments sugars to produce gas that makes the dough rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and enriches flavour and browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes to browning of the crust.
Milk
Adds protein and sugars that help browning and a soft crumb.

The step that matters

Let the sponge settle and rise before adding the rest. The yeast needs time to become active and build gas in the batter. Pouring off the sediment keeps debris out of the dough, and a warm rise gives the bread its lift 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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