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Bread

Half Rye Bread with Molasses

A rye bread loaf made with a yeast sponge, wheat and rye flour, salt, molasses, and brushed with lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Half Rye Bread with Molasses

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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a sponge with yeast and wheat flour or use a white bread sponge.

  2. Mix in rye flour to form the dough.

  3. Add coarse sea salt and molasses (or brown sugar) to the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Prove the dough until it rises, then shape into loaves.

  2. Bake the loaves at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  3. While hot, brush the tops with lard for a soft crust.

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 + ryetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + wheattop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + ryetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Rye flour
Adds flavour and a denser crumb, since it forms less gluten than wheat flour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark colour that promotes browning in the crust.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, which makes the dough rise.

The step that matters

Proving the dough until it rises. Under-proofed dough stays dense and over-proofed dough collapses, because yeast gas production and gluten strength must be balanced before baking.

“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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