Skip to main content
Bread

Entire Wheat Bread

A yeast-leavened bread made with whole wheat flour, milk, sugar, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and wheat 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 ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Scald the milk and add sugar and salt.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and add it to the cooled mixture.

  4. Stir in the whole wheat flour and beat well.

  5. Cover the dough and let it rise until it doubles in size.

  6. Beat the dough again.

Shape and bake

  1. Transfer the dough to a bread pan.

  2. Let the dough rise again.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + wheattop 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Whole wheat flour
Forms the structure of the loaf and gives it its nutty flavor and dense crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and turn light and airy.
Milk
Adds richness, softness and browning to the crumb and crust.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Salt
Strengthens the gluten and controls the speed of yeast fermentation.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until it doubles. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and stretch the gluten network. Under-proofed dough bakes dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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.

More whole wheat bread recipes

Unfermented 3 See all 125 →

You might also like

Wheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipesBarley Wheat BreadBarley Wheat Bread6 recipesCornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipes