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Bread

Caraway Bread

A rye and whole wheat loaf flavored with caraway seeds, sweetened with sugar and baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Caraway 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

  1. In a deep bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and salt with the scalded milk.

  2. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast cake, caraway seeds, and rye flour. Mix well and turn out onto a floured board.

  3. Knead in the whole wheat flour.

Rise and shape

  1. Return the dough to the bowl and let it rise until doubled in bulk.

  2. Knead slightly again, shape into loaves, and place in buttered bread pans.

Bake

  1. Cover and let rise again, then bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Caraway + ryetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Forms the bulk of the dough, giving the loaf its dense, hearty structure.
Whole wheat flour
Kneaded in later to add body and help the dough hold its shape.
Yeast cake
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise before and after shaping.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.
Butter
Adds fat, tenderizing the crumb and contributing flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a touch of sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Rising too short leaves a dense loaf, while over-rising can collapse it in the oven.

Swap the caraway

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, rye, flour, wheat):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Carawaythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, rye, flour, wheat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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