Name: Rye Bread
Ingredients: 1 pint rye flour; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ pint cornmeal; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ pint wheat flour; 1 tablespoon butter or lard; 1 teaspoon sugar; ½ pint milk

Why it works: Rye and wheat 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Sift together rye flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
Rub in the butter or lard until well combined.
Add the milk and mix into a smooth batter.
Pour the batter into a well-greased tin.

Bake

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.
Protect the loaf with paper for the first 20 minutes of baking.

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.

Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour: Gives the bread its distinctive flavour and a dense, moist crumb.
Cornmeal: Adds a coarse texture and slight sweetness to the crumb.
Wheat flour: Provides gluten structure that helps the loaf hold its shape.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking to lift the batter and help it rise.
Butter or lard: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Milk: Hydrates the flours into a batter and adds softness and browning.

“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.