Name: Excellent Dairy-bread Made Without Yeast
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon pounded sugar; 50 grains pure carbonate of soda; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 pound flour; sour buttermilk (enough to make a firm dough)

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Excellent Dairy-bread Made Without Yeast

Ingredients

1 teaspoon pounded sugar
50 grains pure carbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 pound flour
sour buttermilk (enough to make a firm dough)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Blend the sugar and carbonate of soda together.
Mix the salt with the flour.
Rub the soda and sugar mixture through a fine sieve into the flour.
Stir and mix well, then quickly form a firm dough with the sour buttermilk. Use buttermilk that is quite sour but not rancid.

Bake

Place the dough in the oven immediately after making to avoid heaviness.
Bake the loaf in a thoroughly heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 50 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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carbonate of soda: Reacts with the sour buttermilk's acid to produce carbon dioxide, which lightens the loaf.
Sour buttermilk: Provides the acid that activates the soda and moisture that forms the firm dough.
Flour: Forms the gluten and starch structure that holds the loaf together as it sets.
Sugar: Adds a little sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Get the dough into the oven immediately. Carbonate of soda and acid start producing carbon dioxide as soon as they are mixed with liquid. If the dough waits, much of the gas escapes before baking sets the structure, leaving a dense, heavy loaf.

“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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Excellent Dairy-bread Made Without Yeast