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Bread

Entire Wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made with whole wheat and bread flour, molasses, lard, malt extract, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and bread 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 ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix all ingredients together to form a dough.

  2. Allow the dough to rise until it loses its spring.

Shape and rise

  1. Gently pull the dough over and let it rise nearly to full.

  2. Punch down the dough and let it rise again until it is half full.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) with steam.

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 + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + malttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + malttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole wheat flour
Provides the bulk of the structure and a nutty, coarse texture.
Bread flour
Its higher protein builds gluten for structure and chew.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and yeast can become active.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture, and feeds the yeast.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide that makes the dough rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until it loses its spring. Under-proofed dough is dense and tight, while over-proofed dough collapses and loses gluten strength. Judging the rise by how the dough feels, not only by time, helps the loaf hold its shape and volume 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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