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Bread

Milk Bread

A yeast bread made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Milk Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine warm milk and dissolved yeast in a bowl.

  2. Add melted butter, sifted flour, and sugar. Stir well.

  3. Set the mixture aside to rise until light.

  4. Work in enough flour to form a firm dough.

  5. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the dough in pans.

  2. Allow it to rise once more before baking.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. 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

Warm new milk
Provides moisture and softness to the crumb while dissolving and hydrating the dough.
Fleischmann's yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sifted flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the bread its body.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and contributes to browning in the baked crust.

The step that matters

Work in enough flour to form a firm dough. Too little flour leaves the dough sticky and weak, so it cannot hold the gas from rising. Too much makes the bread dense and dry. The dough should feel firm but still soft.

“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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