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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made from whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Bread

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast cakes and salt in the tepid water.

  2. In a warmed large mixing bowl, combine the flour and stir in the wet mixture with a wooden spoon.

  3. Add the melted butter and sugar, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to your hands.

  5. Cover the bowl with an inverted tin pan and wrap it in a woolen blanket. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, pour the dough into three or four long pans and let it rise again.

  2. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C) and bake the loaves for 1 hour and 15 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf and a hearty, nutty flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Knead until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from the yeast. Under-kneaded dough stays sticky and rises poorly, giving a dense 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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