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Bread

Buttermilk Bread

A simple bread made with buttermilk, baking soda, lard, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour 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 ↓

Buttermilk Bread

Ingredients

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

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix buttermilk, baking soda, lard, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until you achieve a medium stiff dough.

  3. Shape the dough into loaves and place them in greased pans.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the loaves rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the bread rise.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to browning.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.

The step that matters

Shape the dough and let it rise until doubled. Over-kneading or letting the dough rise too long can cause the gas-holding structure to collapse, leaving dense bread. Rising in a warm place helps the yeast-free leavening work steadily.

“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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