Skip to main content
Bread

Rye Bread

A yeast-raised rye bread made with milk, water, butter, sugar, and rye meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Rye 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.

Make the dough

  1. Combine scalded milk, boiling water, butter, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the dissolved yeast and flour to the mixture and beat thoroughly.

  3. Cover the bowl and let the mixture rise until light.

  4. Add rye meal until the dough is stiff enough to knead, then knead the dough thoroughly.

  5. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves.

  2. Let the loaves rise once more.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Rye meal
Adds flavor and firms the dough, though it has less gluten to hold gas than wheat flour.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and moisture with a light caramel flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture, richness, and softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the rye meal. Rye has little gluten, so adding too much makes the dough dense and hard to knead. Add it gradually until the dough is just stiff enough to knead.

“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.

More rye bread recipes

Torte 7Indian 6Molasses 5Sourdough 4Graham 3Steamed 3 See all 103 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes