Name: Royal Baking Powder Bread
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 3 teaspoons baking powder; 1½ cups milk; 2 tablespoons sugar (optional, for sweeter bread)

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Royal Baking Powder Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1½ cups milk
2 tablespoons sugar (optional, for sweeter bread)

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.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift the baking powder into the flour and add the salt.

Mix, shape and bake

Gradually mix in enough milk to form a soft dough.
Shape the dough lightly and place it in the oven.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,383 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the structure of the bread as its gluten and starch set during baking.
Baking powder: Releases carbon dioxide gas that lifts the dough so it rises and becomes light.
Milk: Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and adds moisture and richness to the crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Get the dough into the oven promptly after shaping. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so the rise is strongest if the dough goes into the hot oven without delay. Shaping gently also avoids overworking the dough, which would toughen the gluten and make the bread dense.

“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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Royal Baking Powder Bread