Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓
How to Distinguish Good Flour
Ingredients
Directions
Sift the flour and warm it in a dry place before making the sponge.
Use milk instead of water for better bread; scald it in warm weather and cool it to lukewarm before use.
Mix the sponge stiff and keep it warm until baked.
If using shortening, melt ½ cup and add it to the wetting or to the sponge after the first rise.
Use 1 cup of yeast for every 2 loaves.
Knead the dough well and form it into loaves, keeping it as soft as possible.
Place the loaves in well-buttered pans and cover with a cloth; let them rise in a warm place for an hour.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
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