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Bread

French Bread and Rolls

A yeast bread made with milk, small-beer yeast, flour, water, salt, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

French Bread and Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sponge

  1. Warm the milk and combine it with the yeast in a pan.

  2. Add enough flour to make a thick batter and cover the pan.

  3. Keep it warm until it has risen fully.

Make the dough

  1. Mix in the warm water and salt.

  2. Rub the butter into a little flour, then add it to the mixture to form a dough.

  3. Let the dough stand for 45 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls and let them rise.

  2. Bake in a preheated 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.

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. Milk + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the batter and dough rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and holds the gas bubbles.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness and flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that help browning and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Keep the sponge warm until fully risen. Yeast works best at warm, steady temperatures. If the sponge is too cold it rises slowly, and if it is too hot the yeast can die. A fully risen sponge gives the dough its lift.

“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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