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Bread

Loaf Bread Without Lard

A simple loaf bread made without lard, using flour, yeast, salt, and warm milk water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Loaf Bread Without Lard

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare and rise

  1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Gradually add the milk-warm water to form a dough.

  3. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Punch down the dough and shape it into two loaves.

  2. Place the loaves in a warm area to rise for another hour.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake the loaves 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.

  1. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,141 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast gas builds the loaf's airy crumb. Rising too little leaves a dense bread, while rising too long can weaken the gluten so the loaves collapse or turn flat in the oven.

“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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