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Bread

Wheat Bread

A basic wheat bread made with flour, yeast, salt, optional butter or milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Wheat Bread

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Sift the flour into a large bread pan or bowl.

  2. Make a hole in the middle of the flour.

  3. Pour in the yeast, using half a teacupful of yeast per two quarts of flour.

  4. Stir the yeast lightly.

  5. Pour in the wetting (milk or water), using warm in winter and cold in summer.

  6. If using water, dissolve a bit of butter the size of an egg in it; if using milk, do not add butter.

  7. Stir the wetting very lightly, but do not mix all the flour into it.

  8. Cover the pan with a thick blanket or towel and set it in a warm place to rise in winter (this is called putting the bread in sponge). In summer, do not leave the bread wet overnight.

Knead and rise

  1. In the morning, add a teaspoonful of salt and mix all the flour with the sponge, kneading well.

  2. Let the dough stand two hours or more until it has risen quite light.

  3. Remove the dough to a molding board and shape it, cutting it into pieces and re-molding them together repeatedly until the dough is elastic under the pressure of your hand, using as little flour as possible.

  4. Shape the dough into loaves and place the loaves into baking tins.

  5. The loaves should rise until they are half way up the pan and until the bulk is doubled.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven until it is hot enough to brown a teaspoonful of flour in five minutes.

  2. Arrange the heat so that it is greater at the bottom than at the top of the oven, and the fire is arranged to give sufficient heat through the baking without being replenished.

  3. Let the loaves stand ten or fifteen minutes.

  4. Prick them three or four times with a fork.

  5. Bake in a quick oven for forty-five to sixty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

635Calories
19 gProtein
18 gFat
96 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the gas produced during rising.
Yeast (in the method)
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Milk (in the method)
Adds moisture and some sugar that helps the crust brown when used as the wetting.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas; underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse. Judging the rise by doubled bulk and a light feel matters for a good loaf.

“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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