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American Formulas for Bran Bread

A loaf of bread made with a mixture of bread flour, whole wheat flour, bran, sugar, salt, yeast, lard, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 209 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

American Formulas for Bran Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Make a warm straight dough.

  2. Let the dough rise until just before it weakens.

  3. Work the dough over and let it rise again for half the time.

Shape and bake

  1. Scale and mold the dough into pans.

  2. Allow for medium proofing.

  3. Optionally roll loaves in meal or bran before baking.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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

Bread flour
Provides gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its chewy crumb.
Whole wheat flour
Adds body and a nutty flavour while absorbing more water than white flour.
Clean bran
Adds fibre-rich texture and a coarse, hearty crumb that dilutes gluten development.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast for fermentation and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.
Yeast
Ferments sugars into carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise and become airy.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and softens the texture of the loaf.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until just before it weakens. Yeast gas production and gluten stretch peak together. Stopping at the point just before the dough weakens keeps gluten strong enough to hold gas, so the loaf rises well instead of collapsing 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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