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Household White Bread

A basic white bread made with flour, water, milk, yeast, sugar, salt, and butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Household White Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the milk and water.

  2. Pour the scalded milk and water over the butter, sugar, and salt.

  3. Wait until the milk and water cool to lukewarm.

  4. Beat in 4 cups of sifted flour with a wooden spoon.

  5. Add the dissolved yeast.

  6. Beat well for 5 minutes.

  7. Stir in more flour until the dough is stiff enough to turn out onto a floured surface.

  8. Knead the dough for about 15 minutes until smooth and elastic, adding flour as needed.

Rise and shape

  1. Place the dough in a greased bowl.

  2. Brush lightly with butter.

  3. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

  4. Once risen, knead again.

  5. Let rise until light, about 1 hour.

  6. Form into loaves or rolls.

  7. Place in greased pans.

  8. Brush with melted butter.

  9. Let stand for 1.5 hours.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 60 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.

  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. 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Ferments sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds richness, softness and browning from milk sugars and proteins.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a softer texture.

The step that matters

Kneading until smooth and elastic. Kneading develops the gluten network so the dough can trap the gas from the yeast. Adding too much flour makes the dough stiff and dense, so the bread rises poorly and turns out heavy.

“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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