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Bread

Wheat Bread

A yeast-leavened loaf made with wheat flour, water, salt, sugar, and butter.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve the cake of Fermentum in lukewarm water.

  2. Stir in sifted flour until it forms a thick batter.

  3. Set in a warm place until it rises and begins to settle.

Make and shape the dough

  1. Add lukewarm water, salt, sugar, butter, and enough sifted flour to make a soft dough.

  2. Knead the dough well and set it to rise until light.

  3. Knead again, form into loaves, and place in greased pans for final rising.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake in a moderately hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until done.

  2. Cool the loaves by standing them on ends in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 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

Fermentum
Starts the fermentation that makes the dough rise.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and bread together.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Final rising in the pans. The loaves must rise until light before baking. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose its structure, so the rise needs to be judged by how light the dough feels.

“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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