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Bread

Wheat Bread

A simple wheat bread made with flour, yeast, salt, milk or water, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Wheat Bread

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a hole in the center.

  2. Pour in the yeast and stir lightly.

  3. Add warm milk or water.

  4. If using water, dissolve a small piece of butter in it.

  5. Stir in the liquid gently.

  6. Leave some flour unmixed.

  7. Cover the bowl with a thick towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

  8. In the morning, add salt.

  9. Mix in the remaining flour.

  10. Knead well.

  11. Let the dough rise for two hours or until light.

  12. Mold the dough until elastic, using minimal flour.

Shape and rise

  1. Shape into loaves.

  2. Place the loaves in baking tins.

  3. Allow them to rise until doubled.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake the loaves for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Ensure the bottom heat is stronger than the top.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Milk or water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and the dough can be kneaded.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast gas must be trapped by the gluten network to lift the loaf. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

“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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