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Bread

Vienna Bread

Vienna Bread is a yeast roll made with milk, water, yeast, salt, flour, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Vienna Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in 3 tablespoons of the milk and water mixture.

  2. Combine the dissolved yeast with the remaining milk and water.

  3. Add salt and enough warmed flour to form a light dough.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and it no longer sticks to your hands.

  5. Place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover the dough.

  6. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 3 hours.

  7. Turn out the risen dough.

Shape and rise

  1. Cut the dough into small rolls.

  2. Knead each roll slightly.

  3. Place the rolls in a greased tin.

  4. Grease the tops of the rolls with melted butter. Cover the rolls.

  5. Let the rolls rise until doubled in size.

  6. Grease the rolls again.

Bake

  1. Bake the rolls in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Milk
Adds richness, softness and browning from its milk sugars and proteins.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and gives the tops a rich, golden finish.

The step that matters

Knead until smooth and no longer sticky. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas produced by yeast. Under-kneaded dough stays sticky and rises poorly, while a well-developed dough holds its shape and becomes light.

“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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