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Bread

Milk Bread

A yeast-leavened bread made with flour, eggs, warm milk, and fine salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Milk Bread

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 dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine 14 pounds of flour and 1 pint of yeast.

  2. Add 4 eggs and enough warm milk to create a dough the thickness of hasty pudding.

  3. Let the dough rise for 2 hours.

  4. Sift in a sufficient quantity of fine salt and work in more flour until the dough reaches a proper consistency.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and test the dough before baking.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the structure of the dough as its proteins develop into gluten.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough and give it structure.
Milk
Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and softens the crumb while adding richness.

The step that matters

Adjusting the dough consistency with salt and flour. Salt tightens gluten and controls yeast activity, so adding it and extra flour changes how the dough rises. Working in flour until the dough is right keeps the texture even and prevents it from becoming too slack or stiff.

“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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