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Bread

Corn-meal-and-wheat Bread

A loaf of bread made with cornmeal and wheat flour, leavened with yeast and baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Corn-meal-and-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 cornmeal base

  1. Pour ½ cup of the water over the cornmeal, salt, sugar, and fat (if used).

  2. Heat the mixture gradually to nearly boiling and cook for 20 minutes in a double boiler.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

Make the dough

  1. Add the flour and yeast mixed with the remaining water.

  2. Knead thoroughly and let rise until it doubles in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into a loaf and place in a pan.

  2. Allow to rise until it nearly fills the pan.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 to 50 minutes.

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).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it its coarse, crumbly, corn-flavoured texture.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure that traps gas so the dough can rise and hold its shape.
Yeast
Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaf rise.
Milk, water, or a mix of the two
Hydrates the cornmeal and flour so the dough can be kneaded and develop gluten.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning in the crust.
Fat
Adds tenderness and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Cool the cornmeal mixture to room temperature before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to the cooked cornmeal while still hot can stop the dough from rising. Cooling first lets the yeast stay alive and 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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