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Bread

Bran Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with bran, flour, milk, water, shortening, salt, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bran 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Soften the yeast in the water.

  2. Add the scalded and cooled milk, shortening, salt, and molasses.

  3. Mix in the bran and white flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into two bread pans.

  2. Let rise until light, then bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 60 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

White flour
Provides gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Bran
Adds fibre and a coarser texture, absorbing liquid and making the crumb denser.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep colour and flavour to the crumb and crust.
Milk
Adds moisture, softness, and some sugars that help the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Let rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Under-proofed bread stays dense and heavy, while over-proofing can collapse the structure and weaken the 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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