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Bread

Wheat Bread

A simple wheat bread made with flour, yeast, salt, optional butter, and water or milk.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a hole in the center.

  2. Pour in the yeast and stir lightly.

  3. Add warm water or milk, and if using water, dissolve the butter in it.

  4. Stir in the wet ingredients lightly without mixing all the flour.

  5. Cover with a thick towel and let it rise in a warm place until bubbly.

Knead and shape

  1. In the morning, add salt and knead the dough until elastic.

  2. Shape the dough into loaves and place in baking tins, allowing them to rise until doubled in size.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Prick the loaves with a fork and bake for 45 to 60 minutes until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaf its structure.
Active dry yeast
Ferments the sugars in the flour, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture and flavor.
Salt
Strengthens gluten and controls the pace of yeast fermentation for flavor.

The step that matters

Knead until elastic. Kneading develops the gluten network that holds the rising gas. Under-kneaded dough rises weakly and yields a dense loaf, while the dough must be elastic before shaping.

“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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