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Bread

Milk Bread or Rolls

Milk bread or rolls made with flour, milk, butter, egg, sugar, salt, and yeast, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Milk Bread or Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a tray, make a hole in the center of the flour.

  2. Add yeast, egg, butter, salt, and sugar into the hole.

  3. Pour in a little warm milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the remaining flour and milk until a stiff dough forms.

  5. Knead the dough for a few minutes.

  6. Rub off any dough sticking to the tray with a little flour.

  7. Sift flour on the tray, place the dough back, and work it well.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and set in a warm place until light.

  2. Brush the top with egg and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. For rolls, cut the dough into smaller pieces before shaping.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 dough its structure and chew.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, and the brushed egg helps the top brown.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and makes it tender.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the dough become soft and pliable.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Letting the shaped dough rise until light. The dough needs enough time in a warm place for the yeast to produce gas and expand the dough. Stopping too early leaves a dense loaf, while letting it go too long can weaken the gluten so the loaf collapses or bakes flat.

“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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