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Bread

Buttermilk Bread

A quick oven-baked bread made with buttermilk, baking soda, lard, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the buttermilk and baking soda.

  2. Add the lard and a little salt, then gradually incorporate flour until a medium stiff dough forms.

  3. Knead the dough lightly and shape it as desired.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to produce gas and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, helping the bread rise.
Lard
Adds fat that shortens gluten strands, giving a tender texture and moistness.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.

The step that matters

Mixing the buttermilk and baking soda before adding flour. The baking soda reacts with the acid in buttermilk right away, so the dough should be shaped and baked promptly to keep the gas produced during rising.

“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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