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Bread

Entire-wheat Bread

A simple whole wheat loaf made with yeast, sugar, and butter, baked at 350°F for about an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entire-wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, reserving ½ cup for kneading.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in the water.

  3. Mix the salt, sugar, and butter with the flour, then stir in the yeast and water.

  4. Beat the mixture well, then knead for 20 to 30 minutes.

Rise and bake

  1. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled in size.

  2. Shape the dough and place it in a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Entire wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf through gluten and the wheat bran and germ flavor.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and gives it an airy crumb.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the dough can be kneaded.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture of the loaf.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Kneading. Kneading for 20 to 30 minutes develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense, while the rise is what gives the loaf its light texture.

“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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