Skip to main content
Bread

French Bread

A yeasted loaf made with flour, milk, butter, sugar, and salt, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 very slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a cavity in the center.

  2. Pour in the lukewarm milk and yeast mixture, and mix with some flour to form a light sponge.

  3. Cover and let it prove in a warm place for 1 hour.

  4. Add the remaining lukewarm milk, butter, sugar, and salt; knead until stiff.

  5. Let it prove for another hour, then knead again and prove for a final hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into bricks and place them on baking tins.

  2. Let them prove in a warm place for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Butter + sugartop 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

Flour
Its gluten forms the stretchy network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the crumb and helps the dough stay supple.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and enriches the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the bread and feeds the yeast, which also helps browning.

The step that matters

Proving the dough. Yeast gas must be trapped by a well-developed gluten network. Proving too long lets the gluten weaken and the dough collapse, while proving too short leaves a dense loaf.

“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.

More french bread recipes

Pudding 13and Rolls 3 See all 51 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes