Skip to main content
Bread

Cream Bread

A yeast bread made with butter, milk, water, flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and yeast, then baked into loaves and rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the butter in the scalding milk.

  2. Add the cold water.

  3. When cool, add the sifted flour and beat until very smooth.

  4. Dissolve the yeast in a little tepid water.

  5. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture and set in a warm place for 2 hours.

Knead and shape

  1. Add the sugar, salt, and dissolved baking soda.

  2. Stir in flour until the dough can be handled.

  3. Knead for 20 minutes, or longer if sticky.

  4. Let rise for 2 hours.

  5. Form into loaves.

  6. Knead each loaf for 5 minutes.

  7. Let each loaf rise for 30 minutes.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake each loaf for 1 hour.

  2. Rub the top crust with sweet butter.

  3. Let cool without covering.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb and carrying flavor.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that brown the crust and soften the crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes browning in the crust.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the dough to release gas, adding some lift.

The step that matters

Knead for 20 minutes, or longer if sticky. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas yeast produces. Stopping too early leaves a weak dough that rises poorly and bakes up dense. A sticky dough is often still hydrated enough to need more work, so extra kneading helps it firm up.

“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.

You might also like

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