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Bread

Rye Bread

A yeast-leavened rye bread made with milk, sugar, salt, flour, and optional fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the dough

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, salt, and fat (if using).

  3. Pour the hot milk over the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  4. Mix the yeast with a little lukewarm liquid and add it to the bowl.

  5. If possible, let it sit in a warm place for 1 hour; otherwise, add flour gradually.

  6. Mix well, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth.

Rise and shape

  1. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1½ hours.

  2. Gently knead the dough again and let it rise for another hour.

  3. Place the dough in a 6-quart bowl lined with a floured cloth.

  4. When the dough has risen to the top, turn it out onto a floured hot baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake in a very hot oven for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake 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.

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. Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Gives the loaf its dense crumb and distinctive earthy flavor.
Wheat flour
Its gluten forms a network that traps gas and gives structure.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during rising, which leavens the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Cool the milk to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Very hot liquid kills yeast, so the milk must cool first. If it is too cold, the yeast works slowly and the dough rises poorly.

“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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