Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: more yeast; less liquid; oatmeal; wheat flour; barley flour; rye flour

Why it works: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Use a little more yeast and less liquid than usual.
Knead the dough for a longer time.
Mix oatmeal or a combination of wheat, barley, and rye flour, doubling the amount of wheat flour.
For the finest brown bread, use wheat flour ground over head.

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.

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.

Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + barleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together185 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Barley + ryetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together66 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).