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Health Bran Bread

A yeast bread made with Pillsbury Health Bran, best flour, molasses, sugar, salt, yeast, baking soda, and lukewarm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Health Bran Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the dough

  1. Mix the flour, bran, and baking soda thoroughly.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of the lukewarm water.

  3. In the remaining water, add molasses, sugar, and salt, then add the dissolved yeast.

  4. Stir thoroughly, then mix in the flour, bran, and baking soda, adding more flour if necessary.

  5. Form the mixture into a ball with your hands and set it to rise.

  6. If the temperature is right (80° to 82° F), it will require 2½ hours to rise.

Rise, shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough well and let it rise for another ½ hour.

  2. Divide the dough and shape it into two loaves, placing them in pans.

  3. Let the loaves rise for ½ hour longer, then bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaves their structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments sugars, making the dough rise.
Bran
Adds fibre and a coarser texture, and absorbs water, firming the dough.
Molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, moisture and a darker colour to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, adding lift and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Let the first rise run its full time at the right temperature. Yeast activity depends on warmth, so dough kept too cold rises slowly and may stay dense, while overly warm dough can over-ferment and lose structure. Judging the rise by the stated temperature and time helps the loaves develop good volume.

“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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