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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

A loaf of whole wheat bread made with mashed potatoes, molasses, lard, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Bread

Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes and mix with warm water until lukewarm.

  2. Add the softened yeast cake and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the molasses and enough whole wheat flour to create a thin batter.

  4. Beat the mixture well, then add the melted lard and enough flour to form a stiff batter.

Rise and bake

  1. Cover and let rise overnight or until doubled in size.

  2. Fill a baking dish halfway with the batter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

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. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + wheattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast cake
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the bread, with a nutty, coarse texture.
Boiled potatoes
Add moisture and starch that help keep the loaf soft.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and food for the yeast.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and build structure; under-proofing leaves a dense loaf, while the rise must be judged by size, not just by the clock.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, wheat, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, wheat, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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