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 ↓
Wheat Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Scald the milk until bubbles form around the edge and a thin scum appears on top.
Pour the hot milk into a bread pan, add the butter and salt, and let it cool to lukewarm.
Add the water, turn in the yeast, and sift in enough flour to form a thick batter, beating constantly for about five minutes.
Cover the pan with a clean towel and a lid, and let it stand in a warm place until morning, when it should be full of gas bubbles.
Add enough flour to make a soft dough, then turn it out onto a floured board and knead for about fifteen minutes until smooth and elastic.
Grease the bread pan, place the dough inside, and lightly grease the top or brush it with milk.
Cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
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