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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

A loaf of whole wheat bread made with flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Bread

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together the whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add enough milk to form a dough that is stiff enough to handle.

  3. Handle the dough as little as possible.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a loaf.

  2. Place the loaf in a deep buttered pan.

  3. Let the loaf stand for five minutes before baking.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for longer than white bread.

  5. Cover the loaf with a sheet of paper.

  6. Butter the side that touches the bread.

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 + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf, with more bran and body than white flour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to lift the loaf as it bakes.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dry ingredients form a cohesive dough.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Handle the dough as little as possible. Overworking a dough with gluten-forming flour makes it tough, and baking powder loses lift if the dough is kneaded or left to stand too long before baking.

“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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