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Bread

German Bread

German Bread is a yeast‑leavened loaf with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, baked until golden.

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 ↓

German 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. Boil the milk and let it cool slightly.

  2. Make a rising with the milk and yeast until light.

  3. Mix in the sugar and lard or butter.

  4. Add enough flour to form a soft dough.

  5. Flour a surface and roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into two large pans.

  2. Make a dozen indentations on top with your fingers.

  3. Place a small piece of butter in each indentation.

  4. Sift the sugar and cinnamon mixture over the top.

  5. Let the dough rise again until perfectly light.

  6. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its proteins help give the crumb a tender structure.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise and turn light.
Flour
Its proteins form gluten, the stretchy network that gives the bread its structure.
Lard or butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the baked top.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise again until perfectly light. The second rise lets the yeast build gas and air pockets before baking. Rising too little leaves a dense loaf, while over-proofing can collapse the structure, so the dough should look light and puffy before it goes into the oven.

“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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