Skip to main content
Bread

Good Bread Simply Made

A simple loaf made with milk, water, lard, sugar, salt, yeast, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Good Bread Simply Made

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix milk and water until lukewarm.

  2. Add lard, sugar, salt, and dissolved yeast in ½ cup lukewarm water.

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  4. Knead very little and let rise overnight.

  5. The next morning, knead into three loaves.

Shape and bake

  1. Grease the loaves and let them rise until even with the pans.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Reduce heat to 350°F (175°C) and bake for 45 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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 gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds richness and helps the crumb brown during baking.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens its texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the loaves rise until even with the pans. Under-proofed loaves stay dense and may split in the oven, while over-proofed loaves can collapse. Yeast gas must fill the shaped dough before baking sets its structure.

“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.

More plain bread recipes

Pudding 7 See all 18 →

You might also like

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