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Bread

Wheat Bread

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

  2. Make a hole in the center and add the yeast.

  3. Pour in warm water or milk, and if using water, add a piece of butter the size of an egg.

  4. Stir lightly, cover with a towel, and let rise in a warm place until bubbly.

  5. In the morning, add salt and mix in the remaining flour, kneading well.

  6. Let the dough rise for two hours until light.

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

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into loaves and place in baking tins, allowing them to rise until doubled in size.

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

  3. Bake until golden brown, about 25-30 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.

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Water or milk
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the yeast can activate.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Kneading and the second rise. Thorough kneading develops the gluten that traps the gas from the yeast, so the dough stretches and rises well. Using minimal extra flour during shaping keeps the dough from becoming dry and stiff.

“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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