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Bread

Bread Sticks

Bread sticks are small, elongated rolls made from a yeast dough with milk, butter, sugar, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Bread Sticks

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Combine scalded milk, yeast cakes, butter, lukewarm water, sugar, and salt to make a sponge.

  2. Add the beaten egg white to the sponge mixture.

  3. When the dough has doubled in size, knead it.

Shape and rise

  1. Shape the dough into sticks 6 to 7 inches long by rolling small pieces between your fingers and the board.

  2. Place the sticks in bread stick pans or on baking sheets.

  3. Let them rise until very light.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot 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.

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. 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the breadsticks their structure and chew.
Yeast cakes
Ferment the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Egg white
Adds protein that strengthens the dough structure and helps it hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that soften the crumb and aid browning.

The step that matters

Let them rise until very light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the shaped dough. Underproofed sticks stay dense and bake up heavy, while the structure must still be strong enough to hold its gas.

“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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