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Bread

Home-ground Wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made from home-ground wheat flour, yeast, water or skim milk, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Home-ground Wheat 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine water or skim milk, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the home-ground wheat flour and yeast, mixing until a dough forms.

  3. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth.

  4. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Let it 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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Home-ground wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf, with bran and germ adding a denser, nuttier crumb.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide that makes the dough rise and gives the bread its airy texture.
Water or skim milk
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form, giving the dough its elasticity.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and aids browning of the crust.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for the dough to expand; under-proofed dough gives a dense loaf, while over-proofed dough may collapse in the oven.

“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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