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Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Bread

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 ↓

Whole 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Scald 1 pint of milk by pouring in 1 pint of boiling water.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Dissolve 1 cake of compressed yeast in 2 tablespoons of lukewarm water and stir into the liquid when lukewarm.

  4. Add enough flour to form a soft, elastic dough that does not stick to your hands.

  5. Knead the dough until smooth, then place it in a bowl.

Rise and bake

  1. Put the bowl in a bread raiser and pour warm water around it until it reaches half the height of the bowl.

  2. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for about 2.5 hours until light.

  3. Mould the dough without adding flour and place it in a greased square pan.

  4. Let it rise for about 1 hour until light and spongy.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that add softness and a tender crumb.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and elasticity.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Kneading until smooth. Kneading develops the gluten network so the dough can trap gas from the yeast; under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense.

“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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