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Bread

Whole Wheat Flour Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with whole wheat flour, milk, water, and salt.

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

Whole Wheat Flour 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.

Make the dough

  1. Combine boiling water with scalded milk and salt.

  2. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the yeast dissolved in ½ cup lukewarm water.

  3. Beat in enough whole wheat flour to make a batter. Whip until light.

  4. Gradually add more flour to knead into a dough.

  5. Knead well and let rise until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into loaves.

  2. Let rise again.

  3. Bake for 40 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).

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
Provides the structure of the dough as it is beaten and kneaded.
Yeast
Ferments the dough so it becomes light and rises before baking.
Scalded milk
Adds softness and richness to the crumb and helps the dough hold moisture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to boiling or very hot liquid can stop it from rising. Lukewarm liquid keeps it active.

“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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