Name: Two Loaves of Wheat Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups scalded milk or boiled water; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 yeast cake; ½ cup water (boiled and cooled); about 7 cups well-dried flour (sifted); butter (for greasing pans)

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Two Loaves of Wheat 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

In a mixing bowl, combine the scalded milk or boiled water, sugar, and salt.
When the liquid is lukewarm, dissolve the yeast cake in the ½ cup of water and add it to the mixture.
Gradually mix in enough sifted flour to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough until elastic, then cover and let it rise in a warm place (about 70°F) until doubled in size.
Punch down the dough and knead slightly without removing it from the bowl.
Let it rise again until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

Shape the dough into two loaves and place in buttered pans to rise a third time.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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

Flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast cake: Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Milk or water: Hydrates the flour so the gluten can develop and the dough can stretch.
Sugar: Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Kneading until elastic. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas yeast produces. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense, while the stiff dough needs enough work to become elastic.

“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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Two Loaves of Wheat Bread