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Bread

Family Loaf-bread

A basic yeast bread made with wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Family Loaf-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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine wheat flour and salt.

  2. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add to the flour mixture.

  3. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a greased loaf pan.

  2. Allow it to rise again until it reaches the top of the pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and chew.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast.
Yeast
Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaf rise.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. The rise develops gas and flavour in the dough. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and bake up flat.

“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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