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Rye and Wheat Bread

A yeast bread made with wheat and rye flour, molasses, fat, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Rye and 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine the wheat flour and rye flour in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve the yeast in warm water if using dry yeast, or mix with liquid if using liquid yeast.

  3. Add the yeast mixture to the flour along with molasses or syrup, fat, and salt.

  4. Mix until a dough forms, then knead on a floured surface until smooth.

Rise and bake

  1. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise overnight.

  2. Shape the dough into loaves and place in greased pans.

  3. Let rise again until doubled in size, then bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30-40 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 gives the loaf its main structure and chewy crumb.
Rye flour
Adds flavor and a denser, moister crumb, since it forms less gluten than wheat.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and gives the loaf its airy texture.
Molasses or syrup
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, color, and a deeper flavor to the bread.
Fat
Softens the crumb and adds tenderness and moisture to the finished loaf.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to expand the dough. Underproofed dough bakes up dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and lose its structure.

“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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