It doesn't have to be cooled to add the eggs. You just have to beat a little bit of the warm milk into the eggs, then another little bit -- it's called tempering the eggs. You slowly warm them before mixing into all the hot milk, and then they don't scramble. The custard recipe I make all the time is like this; the idea is that it will bake fast because it's already warm when it goes into the oven.

We had this Cheesy Potato Sausage soup a few weeks ago at a potluck. It was very good! He said it was Jimmy Dean sausage in it and I went to their website and think this is it. He used the Hot sausage in it, not regular. Ingredients a.. 1 pkg. Regular Flavor Jimmy Dean® Pork Sausage, cooked, crumbled and drained 3 medium baking potatoes, baked, peeled and cut into 1" cubes 1/4 cup butter or margarine 1/2 cup onion, chopped 1/4 cup all purpose flour 3 cups chicken broth 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme 3 cups milk 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese salt and pepper to taste Directions Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions; sauté until tender. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually stir in chicken broth; bring to a boil, stirring frequently until thickened and smooth. Stir in milk, thyme, sausage and potatoes; bring just to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Stir in Parmesan cheese. Serve hot. Yield: 10-12 servings

Sweet breads often use milk. I make a Portuguese Sweet Bread from the old Sunset Bread book that's great. Similar to Hawiian Bread or Italian sweet bread. Perfect for Easter. I actually make it for Easter by shaping the loaves into large eggs and painting spring flowers on the unbaked loaves with food coloring. I could look up my recipe for you, but I did a Google and there are many. This is one. PORTUGUESE SWEET BREAD 1 c. sugar 1 yeast cake, dissolved in 1/4 c. lukewarm water 4 eggs, well beaten 1 tsp. vanilla 5 1/2 c. flour 1/2 c. butter 1 c. milk Dissolve butter, sugar, a little salt in 1 cup of scalded hot milk. Cool to lukewarm, then combine all other ingredients. Knead until smooth. Grease 2 loaf pans, let rise in pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Milk can make for quite a tender crumb in breads. Some softer breads use milk as well as some rolls and such. Could search and see what you come up with if you don't get a recipe you like here.

Yet one more "expert" opinion on the subject as told in the book, CookWise, by Shirley O. Corriher. (from page 80) Bread recipes in old cookbooks advise you to scald the milk before using it in a bread. I thought this heat was taken to kill some enzyme in the milk and that modern pasteurization had made scalding unnecessary. I had also heard that after running tests on scalded and unscalded milk a food magazine staff concluded that it made no difference. I did notice when I was developing the Honey Whole Wheat Loaf recipe, however, that an increase in the nonfat dry milk to 1/2 cup significantly reduced the bread volume. Attributing this to the sugar in the milk. I was then amazed to read in a professional baking book, "It has long been known in the are that nonfat dry milk seriously affects the volume, symmetry, cellular structure, and texture of bread when used as such. Research by prior investigators has found that such nonfat milk, when heat treated by holding it at about 180°F to 190°F over a period of time, overcomes this undesirable property to a certain degree when it is used in the conventional system of bread-making." When I delved into the literature on the subject, I found that in 1975 two Michigan State University researchers, T. Volpe and M.E. Zabik, isolated a protein in the whey that was responsible for this reduced volume and poor texture. Unfortunately it is present in nonfat dry milk as well as fresh. I believe that the amount of this protein is the key to whether it will harm the bread--that would explain why less than 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk had no ill effects on my bread. I imagine you will find that it does not matter in some recipes, but it may in others. But, as they say, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Personally I am going to scald both milk and reconstituted nonfat dry milk just for my own peace of mind. (end of information) Grainlady note: It comes down to how much dairy is in your bread, as to whether the protein found in whey will affect the bread adversly, if you DO NOT scald the milk. To avoid this problem, I'd suggest Baker's Special Dry Milk powder from King Arthur Flour (item 1188). After reading the information in CookWise, it helped me to understand why my Dill Bread, which has a large amount of cottage cheese in it, always had a less than perfect shape and crust formation. Now I heat the cottage cheese up to scalding temperature, and it has a much better finished appearance. It also helped me to understand why my bread experiments using large amounts of whey protein powder didn't work well. -Grainlady