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Bread

Entire Wheat Bread

A whole wheat loaf made with yeast, butter, sugar, and salt, baked after a long rise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Reserve 1 cup of flour for kneading.

  2. Mix the remaining flour with sugar and salt in a bowl.

  3. If using compressed yeast, dissolve it in a small amount of warm water.

  4. Add the remaining warm water and yeast to the flour mixture.

  5. Add softened butter.

  6. Beat the dough vigorously until smooth and light.

  7. Turn the dough onto a floured surface.

  8. Knead for 20 to 30 minutes until elastic.

  9. Return the dough to the bowl.

  10. Cover with a clean towel and a lid.

  11. Let it rise for about 8 hours.

Shape and bake

  1. Lightly butter two bread pans and one roll pan.

  2. Shape the dough into rolls to fill the roll pan.

  3. Divide the rest into two loaves.

  4. Let the rolls and loaves rise until doubled in size.

  5. Bake the rolls in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  6. Bake the loaves for 1 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.

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).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Whole wheat flour
Forms the structure of the dough and gives the bread its hearty texture.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough. Kneading for the full 20 to 30 minutes develops gluten, which gives the dough elasticity to trap gas and rise well. Under-kneaded dough bakes up dense.

“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 whole wheat bread recipes

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